For the quiet former Kamehameha AD, it was about helping kids

Ervin "Erv" Kau, a 1958 ‘Iolani graduate who worked his way through 10 colleges and ultimately served 23 years as a Kamehameha Schools athletic director, died last Friday at age 72.

Kau retired in 2009 after helping lead what the National Federation of High Schools/National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association calls "the nation’s largest high school athletic program." Kamehameha’s Kapalama campus offers some 120 teams to students in grades 7-12 and more than 2,200 participate.

Kau quietly called the shots as athletic director and associate athletic director, after working in personnel for Kamehameha, DHL, Duty Free Shoppers and Pacific Insurance.

His college path was more of a maze. Kau attended 10 schools while selling encyclopedias to support himself. He was the company’s regional rep for everything west of Nebraska and Texas. Everywhere he went he attended college, going more than one semester at only three — University of Colorado, Multnomah and Cal State Los Angeles.

Kau, named after former Detroit Tigers star Ervin Fox, played baseball at all three and was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles and San Francisco Giants. He turned them down because he was a lifelong Yankees fan and only would play for them.

His baseball coach at ‘Iolani was the late Eddie Hamada, who would remain a friend and mentor. Kau coached Kamehameha’s varsity baseball team before becoming AD, his dream job. Before that, at every college stop, he would find the nearest Little League program and volunteer to coach.

"His big thing was he loved to watch kids get it, and move to the next level and get it," said former wife Cherryll Kau, who remained close to Erv until the end. "He worked tirelessly to get kids to reach their potential. I can’t even know the number of kids he got scholarships for at Kamehameha so they could go to the mainland. He’d say ‘here are the forms, fill them out. This college will take you.’ He wanted to see kids aspire and get there."

Kau earned bachelor’s degrees in business education and administration, and was a semester away from another in business law when he left school after meeting Cherryll in Los Angeles.

"Once I asked him why he didn’t get a master’s," recalled Kau’s daughter, Krystal Hamner. "He said, ‘I never thought about it.’ "

He thought long and hard later, helping to enhance Kamehameha’s storied athletic legacy. One of his best decisions involved convincing a volunteer assistant soccer coach just out of college to apply for the head coaching position.

"I said ‘start me off at intermediate or JV,’ " recalled Michele Nagamine, a 1986 Kamehameha graduate who is now the University of Hawaii coach. "He just said, ‘I believe in you, you can do this, don’t be afraid. I’m going to throw you in the deep end of the pool.’ Those were his words. I said, ‘You have a life preserver right?’ "

Nagamine would win five state championships at Kamehameha before taking over at Hawaii Pacific and UH. After Kau died, a post on her Facebook page honored the man who had "taken a chance on a young coach with no experience, but a head full of dreams."

She said Kau watched her from afar and let her blossom, offering effective guidance along the way.

"He always let me do my own thing," she recalled. "He was like the guard rails. When I’d get off the path he knocked me back on. Fortunately I never needed the life preserver, but he was there with it. It was sheer pleasure to start my career with him. He was such a good man."

That feeling extended to his family. Kau’s sister Estelle is eight years younger and remembers her brother was "always there when I needed help."

Daughter Krystal remembers calling him nearly every day when she went away to college, just to hear his reassuring voice. They usually talked about sports, something she was forced to love in a house filled with guys and TVs all set on sports, usually recording.

Kamehameha graduate Blane Gaison, who played football for UH and the Atlanta Falcons, met Kau in 1989, when he was hired as football coach and assistant athletic director. Like Nagamine, he describes Kau as a guy who did not seek the spotlight.

"He did the job and did it quietly," said Gaison, now the Kamehameha-Maui AD. "Quiet but effective. He didn’t care for the limelight."

Kau wasn’t one to self-promote, so Nagamine remembers being surprised at all the offices he held on boards and committees in and out of athletics, locally and nationally. The "quiet guy" was also class president at two colleges in those encyclopedia-selling days.

Kau had been struggling with heart and kidney issues. He entered the hospital for the last time because of complications due to a bad reaction to medication.

Kau’s service will be at the Kamehameha Schools Chapel the morning of May 4, with final plans pending. He is survived by sister, Estelle Kau Inn, from Maryland; former wife Cherryll Kau; children Kevin, Derrick, Krystal (Hamner) and Drake; grandchildren David, Makena Kau and Kainoa, and step-grandchildren Lindee and Mychael.