He played tackle in college football for the USC Trojans, with whom he was a two-time All-American and first-team All-Pac-12.

Banner is a native of Tacoma, Washington, where he grew up on the East Side, and has also lived in Puyallup, Washington[2][3][4] He is the biological son of former National Football League (NFL) Pro Bowl offensive tackle and College Football Hall of Famer Lincoln Kennedy, who had dated his mother but never married her.

[4][8][9] His mother, Vanessa, is Chamorro (the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands), was born in Fort Lewis, Washington, and works as a middle school administrator.

[10][11][12][6][4][5][excessive citations] Banner had no idea who Lincoln Kennedy was, or that he was his real father, until he was a seventh grader.

[13][5] His maternal grandfather was Rafael "Ralph" Mendiola Sukola, of Agana Heights and Dededo, Guam.

[11][15] His younger brother, Xavier, played football at Eastern Washington University as a linebacker, and his sister, Mia, is a high school soccer goalie.

[24][21][25] He was also the Lakes class president, logged 373 community service hours, and had a 3.6 grade point average.

[33][35] He was the largest player in college football; at one point in 2015 the 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) Banner weighed 385 pounds (175 kilograms).

[25] Banner joined the historically Jewish, fraternity Zeta Beta Tau, whose members reflected a broad range of ethnicities and races, and majored in Sociology.

"[36] The Colts had obtained the pick used to select Banner by trading tight end Dwayne Allen to the New England Patriots.

[49][30][50] He played his first game for the Steelers on September 15 against the Seattle Seahawks, and made his first NFL start on November 24 against the Cincinnati Bengals.

[51] Banner became a cult hero who was featured in viral videos showing the team's largest player running downfield and flattening linebackers and defensive backs who got in his way, known to many fans as "No.

72 is reporting as eligible" at home games, which was met with increasingly loud cheers and ovations throughout the season.

[55][50] Paul Zeise of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette opined that it was one of the Steelers' most underrated moves, as Banner could compete for right tackle as he "has good feet, he's athletic ... and he definitely has size....

[61] It supports students in Guam, Tacoma, Washington, and Los Angeles both academically and athletically.

He said: "We need to understand that Jewish people deal with the same amount of hate and similar hardships and hard times.

[63] One donor, Stephen Feingold, the grandson of a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania who lived in Mississippi, in the 1910s purchased a cotton farm based on share cropping, the way that the South continued its racist policies after the Civil War.

[66] Banner's B3 Foundation, which supports Black and Brown youth in Tacoma, Los Angeles, and Guam, quickly received an outpouring of support, receiving more than $60,000 in donations, most in increments of $18, a Jewish tradition honoring the numeric value assigned to Hebrew letters that mean "life" (chai).

"[63] Jews across the nation invited him to Shabbat dinners, and a number sent him fresh baked challah bread in the mail.

"[14] He added: "I'm talking to rabbis and going downtown to the Tree of Life synagogue that had the shooting, to look at the kids and say, 'Hey, I got your back.'