Tevita Veikoso, 17, was in his Lennox house watching the Olympics around midnight, August 9, when his cousin, who lived nearby in the ethnic neighborhood, came rushing up to the door saying Latino gangbangers were outside hassling younger Tongan kids and had his father trapped.

When the senior-bound student at Junipero Serra High School ran outside, he spotted more than seven gangsters walking back and forth between his driveway and the one next door at Lennox Tongan United Methodist Church, which his father pastors. They were taunting some eighth-graders still playing pool in a converted garage turned into a recreation room.

"Get out of here!" he screamed. "This is a church."

Tevita went up and confronted one of the gang members who was walking through the driveway, saying the same thing: "Get out of here! This is a church."

For a while, the gangster just bad-mouthed him. Then he stopped and threw a piece of silver pipe at his head, striking his temple and left eye. The two started fighting, while another kid piled on until Tevita's uncle wrestled him to the ground. Other gang members pelted them with bricks and rocks.

By this time, the Serra football player and student was bleeding so badly he had to walk away, trying to find something to cover his swollen-shut eye. Seven hours later, surgeons at a nearby hospital tried to save it, but couldn't.

After the unsuccessful emergency operation, Tevita leaned he would be partially blind the rest of his life. It caused him considerable pain. But a week later, he says he has no animosity for his attackers.

"I really don't care about it anymore," he said, recuperating from home. "I told everybody that I have no hard feelings towards anybody, that I'm already over it. I've forgiven whoever's done this to me. I've accepted what happened to me."

When asked how this is possible, the teenager explains that he simply let all his feelings out the day he lost his eye. And then two minutes later, he was able to joke around with nurses and doctors.

"I have no idea how I could accept this so fast," he reported with a chuckle. "I think it was just a lesson from God. Father Pilato, my principal at Serra, had told me that he asked the Vietnamese Sisters who live by our school to dedicate their adoration to me. So I guess I had a lot of people praying for me, and that's probably why."

Father "Sal" Pilato --- who recently became superintendent of secondary schools for the Los Angeles Archdiocese --- points out that Tongan students from the Lennox area, who were having problems in local public schools, started going to Junipero Serra High School in Gardena five years ago. Currently, there are about a dozen and most are not Catholic. "They've done very well at our school," he said. "Some of the guys have been very talented athletes."

About Tevita, the educator isn't surprised that he has already forgiven the gang member who took his eye away. "Now Tevita is just an exceptional person," he said. "He is one of the nicest, kindest students I ever knew in my 12 years as principal of Serra. He's a gentleman."

New Serra Principal Erick Rubalcava couldn't agree more. "Just a remarkable kid who has a lot of resiliency," he noted. "He told the other Tongan kids that he knows, 'Don't do anything, please. Me losing my eyesight means nothing if you go and retaliate.' I mean, he's just remarkable. If you go to our website, he's in our school video."

On that video, the handsome young man with short dark hair and an intense expression says he loves representing his class as ASB vice-president and his school in athletics. He stresses that you've "got to dig deep" to get things done both in the classroom and on the field. And he confides that his faith has helped him find his work ethic.

Tevita returned to Junipero Serra High School on opening day, August 25, and hopes to continue playing football and volleyball, plus being a "not-that-great" shotputter.

"I have no regrets about what happened," he told The Tidings. "I don't regret going outside, you know, to defend my dad's church or whatever. I didn't even think about it."