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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Preps in Paradise

Hawaii has always been a haven for high school football. Now the nation is noticing
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Duffy Daugherty had his own little Polynesian Pipeline back in the day, ages before people began to abuse the phrase, “back in the day.”

He knew all about the high school football talent waiting to be discovered in Hawaii during the 1960s. That is why he brought Charlie Wedemeyer, Bob Apisa and Dick Kenney all the way to East Lansing from Oahu.

“I think there’s always been a lot of good talent here,” said the man who honed a lot of it, former St. Louis School coach Cal Lee. “Back in the ‘60s those players going to Michigan State had a lot to do with Duffy loving the islands, and he loved the kids.”

There were others before and many since. Roy Gerela, Rockne Freitas, Mosi Tatupu, Russ Francis, Jesse Sapolu and Rich Miano are just a few Hawaii prep stars who went on to enjoy lengthy professional careers. Lee, himself, was a pretty good linebacker who was a Little All-American at Willamette College.

But quality players from the islands are making a major impact throughout the football world.

“We’re on an island 2,600 miles away from the rest of the country and news travels fairly slow,” Lee said. “Now, you’ve got the whole Pac-10, Big XII, now Tennessee, the WAC, Mountain West. The exposure now is greater than ever before.”

The secret is out. One of Lee’s former Crusaders, quarterback Jason Gesser, is a Heisman Trophy candidate at Washington State. Nebraska guard Toniu Fonoti, a graduate of rival Kahuku High School, almost won the Outland Trophy last year. Fonoti, now with the San Diego Chargers, is among a growing number of former Hawaii high school football players in the NFL. They include former Radford High School receiver Ashley Lelie, a first-round pick of the Broncos. Defensive lineman Jonathan Mapu, another Kahuku product, a Parade All-American, will be a freshman at Tennessee this fall. Two years ago, there was a point of time three former St. Louis quarterbacks – Gesser, Hawaii’s Tim Chang and Utah’s Darnell Arceneaux – were all starting QBs for Division I college teams. A fourth former St. Louis quarterback, Joe Correia, was also starting for Hawaii (at linebacker).

And it’s not just individual athletes. St. Louis has been ranked nationally on several occasions in the National Prep Poll and the USA Today Super 25 rankings. Kahuku and Punahou have also attained national rankings in the past 15 years.

Why, or how, does an isolated island chain – whose people are known for their giving spirit – have so many outstanding players and teams participating in our country’s most physically demanding sport?

“It’s probably a combination of things,” said Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive director Keith Amemiya. “First of all, we seem to be blessed with a lot of players who have a lot of physical size with athleticism to go with it. Second, and I don’t know if it’s because we’re an island state, but most Hawaii football players are known for their toughness and warrior mentality. Third, football is a very popular sport in the state and always has been. You get the best athletes playing football.”

Another factor is Lee’s success at St. Louis. College recruiters began to visit the islands more often after they discovered the gold mine at the small Honolulu private high school. Once they got there, they were greeted with a very pleasant surprise. St. Louis was not the only school with talented players. Due to this realization, players from throughout the state began gaining exposure faster than you can say “aloha.”

“A lot of the success of Hawaii football can be traced to Cal Lee because of his success against mainland teams, and because he raised the bar of excellence in Hawaii, which was already pretty high. He forced all the other teams to raise their level of play through year-round training, increased game preparation and coaches’ education,” Amemiya said.

“A fair amount of people resent St. Louis’ prolonged success, but they respect Cal’s ability as a coach because they saw it is based on hard work and organization. Other teams realized there is no magic formula. Hard work, preparation and consistency throughout the program got St. Louis to the top and allowed them to stay there so long.”

Kahuku coach Siuaki Livai and his Red Raiders finally knocked St. Louis off its perch two years ago in the state championship game, and Kahuku repeated the trick last year. On September 21 at Aloha Stadium, the Red Raiders played nationally ranked Long Beach Poly and St. Louis faced top-ranked De La Salle (Concord) in an unprecedented interstate doubleheader matching the Hawaii powerhouses against the storied California programs.

Such match-ups would have seemed laughable a few years ago, but the depth of talent at St. Louis and Kahuku (plus a nice home field advantage) had many believing the Hawaii teams had a legitimate chance in these doubleheaders. Also, with the University of Hawaii team on the road that weekend, the games drew a crowd of over 40,000 fans.

Livai, who played at Kahuku himself, cited the fact that not having an NFL team in Hawaii draws fans to high school games .

“There’s only one college team,” Livai said. “UH is very popular, but so are the high school games. We get about 5,000 a home game (on Oahu’s rural North Shore), which is a little more than when I was playing (in the 1970s).” Although St. Louis had a 55-game winning streak in the late 1980s, the Crusaders began to really get noticed in the ‘90s – despite losing a game or two here and there.

“We were getting national exposure and rankings and people were beating us,” Lee said. “That says a lot about the competition and the players here. People realized St. Louis had a strong program, but that fact that we weren’t unbeatable helped the state’s football reputation.”

From the players’ perspective, pride and isolation are key factors in football’s popularity on the islands.

“We’re stuck on an island. What else are we going to do?” said former Damien Memorial tight end Ben Henry.

Also, Hawaii’s proximity to Samoa, another football factory, has increased the talent level.

“We get a lot of the best Polynesian players, obviously the ones from here and the ones from Samoa. Those are the ones who go on to the next level. A lot of them want to come here (from Samoa). It’s an easier adjustment than the mainland.”

With the increase in popularity of University of Hawaii football, the preps aren’t king anymore. But high schoolers still get a lot of exposure in Hawaii, and still often play in the state’s best venues.

“Hawaii players play with a lot of heart,” said former Roosevelt High School guard Cy Ohira, who played in old Honolulu Stadium (23,000 capacity) and Aloha Stadium (50,000). “You hear a lot of stories growing up about the history of high school football and it gives you the desire to play. We always looked forward to playing in a big stadium.”

Dave Reardon is a veteran sportswriter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin who has covered the Hawaii prep ranks and is currently the beat writer for the University of Hawaii.

Hawaii: One State, One Class

Hawaii high school football is not without its warts. The biggest is its lack of classifications.

Because the state’s best teams are among the nation’s best, no classification leads to lots of lopsided scores. Two years ago, St. Louis beat Damien 84-0, and Damien president Greg O’Donnell said the Monarchs would forfeit rather than play the Crusaders the next season. A compromise was worked out where Damien would play St. Louis only once each season rather than twice. But the question remains. Why is Hawaii the only statewhere there is no high school football classification?

Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive director Keith Amemiya has tried unsuccessfully to create a two-tiered state tournament so that smaller schools and schools with less football tradition would have a chance for a championship.

Also, it was hoped that the St. Louis-Damien situation would create a dialogue to explore classification.

It never really happened, and most observers believe the reason is a 32-year rift between Oahu’s public and private schools. Their differences stem from the Honolulu public schools breaking away from the private schools to form a league with the rural public schools (at issue was an age-old problem that still exists – recruiting). Since 1970, an air of distrust has existed between the private and public schools over football, making any attempt at interleague classification difficult at best.

So, schools like Damien play against St. Louis in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, instead of say, Waialua, a small school in the Oahu Interscholastic Association that gets pounded by Kahuku on a regular basis. The OIA had Red, White and Blue divisions for several years, with schools moving up or down in classification depending on their success the previous season. But the system had its kinks and was eventually scrapped.

“I don’t see why we don’t have it,” former St. Louis coach Cal Lee said of classification. “Whoever has the power should work on classification. It makes sense. The self-esteem of all players is the most important thing.” As for the underdog teams, they will always try. Only later will they realize it was futile.

“We always thought we could pull off the impossible, only to find it was impossible,” former Damien tight end Ben Henry said of taking on St. Louis






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