Youngest of Edwardsville’s Epenesas keeping Iowa football legacy alive
Friday nights were for the youngest son, Iose, at his football games for Edwardsville High.
Saturdays involved driving to Iowa City to see the second-youngest son, Eric, play football for the Hawkeyes.
Sunday? If they could get there in time, it was either off to Buffalo or wherever the third-oldest child, A.J. would be playing as a star defensive lineman for the Buffalo Bills.
With Iose (pronounced Yo-SAY) Epenesa soon to move out of the house to attend Iowa as a freshman, Friday nights will soon again belong to Eppy Epenesa and his wife, Stephanie, in their Edwardsville home. Come Saturday mornings, however, they’ll soon be right back on the road doing the Iowa City-Buffalo shuffle, keeping tabs on all three of their boys. And, as she often does, older sister Samantha might join them as well.
“You can say our weekends are usually pretty busy,” mother Stephanie said with a laugh.
A native of American Samoa, father Eppy, 51, immigrated to the U.S. as a young man to find the real American dream. He found it in the Iowa cornfields, first as a football player at Iowa Wesleyan University, then as a walk-on at the University of Iowa, where he spent three years as a defensive player – the last two-and-a-half of which were upgraded to a full-ride scholarship.
Having met and soon married Stephanie after they both graduated from Iowa, the couple settled back in her hometown of Edwardsville and raised four very athletic children. Sam Epenesa achieved a volleyball scholarship at Purdue, while all three younger sons got full rides to play football at Iowa.
“When Sam was going off to college, Iose was just starting kindergarten,” Stephanie said. “There’s a 13-year age difference.”
Iose is finishing up a standout career at Edwardsville that saw him become the No. 1-ranked football prospect in Illinois, a 5-star recruit with 247Sports and 4-star at the top of ESPN’s list.
Iose, a 6-foot-4, 270-pound defensive lineman, will become the fourth Epenesa family member to play football at Iowa. As a freshman and sophomore at Edwardsville under coach Matt Martin, Iose initially didn’t want to go to Iowa. He wanted to go a different way from the family tradition.
“But after my visits, Iowa seemed more like my real home. I prayed on it a lot and it became my decision to go there,” Ioses said.
Iose’s five-year-older brother, Eric, recently graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Iowa, but he still has a year of eligibility left to play football, and is still deciding whether to play with Iose or get out in the real world to put that degree to work.
Brother A.J., eight years older, is a standout edge rusher with the Bills who is in line for a big payday soon. His contract with the Bills is up and rumors are that other teams will be more than willing to give him a big raise on the $6 million he was already making.
If you ask anyone who knows the Epenesa clan well, though, they’ll tell you Sam was the best athlete in the family.
“She started it. She showed the brothers how to do it,” said Eppy, who still works at Lambert International Airport.
Eppy is the one, though, who really showed all his kids what it takes to succeed in athletics. Get up at 5 a.m. Run to the gym (he had no car then), then lift weights for a couple hours. Come home, shower, and get off to school. After school, football practice, more gym time, home to eat dinner, get the homework done, go to bed and do it all again when those clock dials hit the 12 and the 5 next morning.
That was, in fact, the very routine Iose and his father had most days throughout his senior season with Edwardsville. On Thursday, they both worked out early at the Edwardsville YMCA, then enjoyed one of Iose’s last days of spring break.
“We always tried to make sure they work hard. Hard work isn’t always fun, but there is no other way if you want to achieve some success in life, not just sports,” Eppy said.
For Edwardsville coach Kelsey Pickering, that kind of work ethic, already instilled in Iose, made for an easy player to teach after succeeding Martin.
“Some young men have some hype around them and they might believe that, but Iose just went about his business as another guy in the program,” said Pickering, who coached all the Epenesa boys at Edwardsville, starting as a defensive coach. “He was raised to be just a good person and teammate. With that whole family, you know the way they go about their business is going to be the right way.”
When Martin left as head coach after his sophomore season, Iose initially was very worried about who would be named his successor. When Pickering got the job, he was greatly relieved.
“Coach Pickering was somebody I could talk to. He was a role model for me, just the way he was able to talk to me and understand me,” Iose said.
When Iose packs up for the move to Iowa, which will be in early June, Eppy and Stephanie will become empty-nesters.
“It’s been hard to see any of them go, but with Iose, we’ve gotten really close to him because he’s been here with us alone the last five years,” Stephanie said. “But he’s moving on to a great place and we’ll still see him.”
Most Saturdays, in fact. Then, maybe every Sunday too, just like with A.J.
“Making the NFL is the goal,” Iose said. “But I know I have a lot of hard work ahead of me if that is to happen.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
