Coaches who have played here come back to recruit

Old Hawaii football players don’t fade away, they just come back as college recruiters.

Remember Jeff Ulbrich, the tenacious heart of the linebacker corps that helped the University of Hawaii to a Western Athletic Conference championship with the NCAA’s biggest single-season turnaround in 1999?

Recall Inoke Breckterfield, a Damien graduate and 1998 All-Pac 10 defensive lineman at Oregon State?

They pulled off two of the more notable coups of the local recruiting crop for Wednesday’s National Letter of Intent signing day.

Ulbrich, in his first year as an assistant coach at UCLA after playing and coaching in the NFL, landed linebacker Isaac Savaiinaea, the state’s top college prospect, in a down-to-the-wire tug-of-war with Texas A&M.

Breckterfield, in his inaugural year as an assistant coach at Pittsburgh, gets a long haul citation for securing Kailua defensive tackle Jeremiah Taleni in a 4,660-mile courtship.

Once upon a time, there were few coaches on the Division I level with local ties recruiting in the University of Hawaii’s back yard. There was Norm Chow at Brigham Young, of course, and, for a time, Sam Papalii at Utah, Iowa State and Arizona — he was known as “Darth Vader” by the UH staff — and Ulima Afoa at San Diego State. But not many others.

These days, as former Warriors and past Hawaii products climb the coaching ladder and spread their wings, they are seemingly around every corner from A to W — Army to Wisconsin — and in every conference. And with the visibility and success of Hawaii high school graduates on fields from Halawa to South Bend, their head coaches are sending them back home to get a foothold in the market.

Or, as Breckterfield put it, my head coach (Paul Chryst) knows what Hawaii players are like and he’d like some, too.”

Especially linemen like Taleni who have adventurous spirits and don’t mind 13-hour plane rides.

So UH, which used to contend with just BYU, Utah and a few West Coast schools for local talent, now finds its back yard under an all-comers siege, something never more evident than this year with Pitt, Clemson, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Kansas, Boise State, BYU, San Diego State, Oregon State and Nevada all claiming a recruit from the 808.

In a lot of ways that fierce of a rush makes UH’s considerable local haul — Waianae defensive tackle Kennedy Tulimasealii, Kahuku running back Aofaga Wily and offensive lineman John Wa‘a and Aiea defensive end Ualesi Sale chief among them — that much more remarkable. And it also explains UH’s willingness to do some East Coast prospecting.

Savaiinaea, who was 4 years old when Ulbrich was helping lead UH to the Oahu Bowl, initially knew little of his coach’s background. But he said he was quickly won over by his passion for the game and Hawaii. “Learning that he (played in) Hawaii, that he made it in the NFL and his intensity, his vibe made it much more easy for me (to choose UCLA),” Savaiinaea said.

“It is funny,” Ulbrich said. “It seems like a long time since I played there (at UH). But people still remember that ’99 season, it is where my wife is from and will always be a special place.”

And, apparently, becoming more so all the time.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.