Pono Perez, 17, of Hana-ma‘ulu, got his football start playing Pop Warner for the Lihu‘e Jaguars. In 2000, as a running back and linebacker for the Junior Pee Wees, Perez led the Jags to the state title and a berth
Pono Perez, 17, of Hana-ma‘ulu, got his football start playing Pop Warner for the Lihu‘e Jaguars. In 2000, as a running back and linebacker for the Junior Pee Wees, Perez led the Jags to the state title and a berth in the National Pop Warner playoffs in Florida.
The following year, Perez played quarterback and linebacker for the Lihu‘e Dolphins Pee Wee team. The team went undefeated and won the Kaua‘i Pee Wee division title.
Ula Nakamura, 17, of Hanapepe, got his start with the Hanapepe Cowboys. He was a leader for his team, playing running back and linebacker at the Pee Wee level for two years.
Both of them went on to be star players at Kamehameha School Kapalama and were selected to this year’s the Interscholastic League of Honolulu’s Football First Team. Perez was selected as the All-Purpose player for the offense while Nakamura was selected at the linebacker position.
“The thing I’ll remember the most (about Kamehameha) is the friendships built with the team,” Perez said.
The two seniors are close friends now, but it didn’t start out that way. Both grew up on opposite sides of the island. And didn’t get to know each other until they enrolled at Kamehameha in the seventh grade.
“I didn’t know who he was at first,” Perez said of Nakamura. “I knew who he was through football, but when I saw him at school, I didn’t know who he was.”
Playing on Kamehameha’s intermediate fooball team, Perez and Nakamura were a part of the ILH intermediate championship team. Then they both earned starting roles on the school’s new junior varsity team their sophomore year.
Kamehameha won the ILH JV title in 2005, the same year Perez’s older brother Kaleo played on the varsity state championship team.
Being away from Kaua‘i at such a young age was actually not that hard of a transition, according to Perez.
“It was actually kind of easy,” he said. “We had dorm advisers and we had to do chores, kind of like home. On the weekends, we’d go the movies and watch the varsity games.”
Perez said it also helped that there were other Kaua‘i kids at the school.
For Nakamura, being away helped him grow as a person.
“It was an accelerated learning process,”Nakamura said.
But leaving for O‘ahu was a decision he was glad to make.
“Going to Kamehameha provided me with more opportunities for college and everything,” he said.
Kamehameha finished third in the ILH this year.
Aside from football, Perez played basketball at the intermediate level. Nakamura played baseball all his years at Kamehameha on all levels. Last year, Nakamura was the starting catcher for the second half of the season.
He is expected to start again this season.
With this being their final year of prep school, both are looking into playing sports in college. Nakamura is unsure which college he will go to, but Perez has got his schools narrowed down.
“It’s most likely going to be Colorado State University at Pueblo. It’s a Division II school,” he said.
He has also looked into Western Oregon and St. Joseph’s.
Both Perez and Nakamura graduate this spring.
Perez is the son of Kaleo and Kathy Perez. Nakamura is the son of Clifford and Cheri Matsusaka.
