Menehunes seek to prove 1999 was no fluke Let us, for a moment, collectively suspend our grip on reality. Let us not discuss tangible facts for a moment. Facts, for instance, about the weight difference between Waimea and Kahuku players.
Menehunes seek to prove 1999 was no fluke
Let us, for a moment,
collectively suspend our grip on reality.
Let us not discuss tangible
facts for a moment. Facts, for instance, about the weight difference between
Waimea and Kahuku players. Facts, for instance, about the level of competition
the Red Raiders – part of the Oahu Interscholastic Federation – have been
facing all year as compared to the Menehunes.
Forget it. Shut your eyes and
put these things out of your mind.
Do so because you aren’t going to read
about heart on paper. Heart isn’t measured in numbers, doesn’t compile a stat
line as the season progresses, can’t comprehend being outweighed or less
experienced.
The heart only knows what it feels.
And the hearts of the
people on this island seem to have forsaken the deep red hue of typical flowing
blood for the past two weeks. Rather, dark blue, Menehune blue, has been
coursing through their veins.
The people of Kaua’i have banded together
with the same unbridled spirit of a makeshift militia during the Revolutionary
War. With the KIF season booked for another year, the focus for football fans
and athletic misfits alike has become one: support of Waimea.
I know,
because the phone calls and comments within the circles I travel are all the
same, “We’re all behind the Menehunes, it’s an island-wide thing, now.”
So,
forget the fact that the average Waimea defender weighs 157 pounds, or that
Kahuku carries 79 players on its roster to the Menehunes’ 34. Those, likely,
are the kinds of facts that Kailua fell asleep thinking about on Thursday, Nov.
18, 1999. Problem was, come Friday night, a night it had prepared for all
season, those numbers merely represented the brainwashing Kailua had fallen
victim to. Surely it thought it’d come to the least populated of the major
islands in the Hawaiian chain and roll over some small boys.
But they
didn’t count on heart, didn’t count on the kind of discipline and dedication it
takes to be a member of the Waimea football team. Kailua had no concept of what
it means to be a Menehune, of how it starts as part of your life, and then
becomes your life. The visitors didn’t understand that the young men from the
leeward side of Kaua’i form a bond no heat could separate, a bond that allows
them to swarm defensively like hyenas to a fallen gazelle.
Eight blue
uniforms swallow ball carriers. Five blue uniforms move opponents’ defensive
lines with uncanny force. These are some of the numbers that matter to
Waimea.
REMEMBER KAILUA!!
What an apt rallying cry, much like the
Alamo.
It will be a game that should travel down the annals of state-wide
prep history. Because as numbers go, these are staggering.
Kailua amassed
470 yards from scrimmage to Waimea’s 229. The Surfriders rushed for 121 more
yards than the Menehunes and gained 21 first downs to Waimea’s five – yes,
five.
But when the Vidinha Stadium dust settled, only two numbers meant
anything – those on the scoreboard. Waimea won the quarterfinal
20-18.
Waimea caused eight turnovers in that contest. The Menehunes would
benefit greatly if they could force Kahuku into some of the same.
One has
to wonder if Waimea is like any other school in the state. My first
conversation with Jon Kobayashi, on my first day of work with this newspaper,
was quite an eye-opener. Listening to him talk about Waimea football was like
listening to an old Hoosier talk about basketball in Indiana.
I could tell
this man was speaking with the fabric of his being, not communicating in words,
but in life mantras, in principles garnered directly from his time spent
bleeding blue. Kobayashi was on the 1983 Waimea team that defeated all-powerful
Wai’anae, a victory he has called “maybe the biggest ever for the
island.”
The coach knows something about overcoming obstacles, about
banding together. Many of the players on this year’s team faced Kailua last
year; they know something about overcoming obstacles and banding
together.
And, as I’ve been told it does every season about this time, the
island has banded as well. The militia, 60,000 strong channeled through 34 boys
in blue uniforms will storm Aloha Stadium tonight, will charge in there without
fear and ready to leave their hearts on the astroturf.
