Every day, Brandyn Akana would follow his older brother, Jarinn, up the road to the outdoor courts at Kilohana Elementary School on the remote eastern coast of Molokai.
And every day, the boys would start — but not finish — basketball games.
"That’s how it all started. A lot of fights," said a laughing Brandyn Akana, now a third-year Hawaii assistant coach, of the remote origins of his hoops career. "He’d pick on me. He was a lot bigger and stronger, but I think that made me a better person and player in the future."
Those memories, and many more, will come rushing back for Akana on Saturday, when the UH men’s basketball team (4-3) takes on Chaminade (3-5) at Molokai High’s 2,000-seat gym, "The Barn," at 7:30 p.m. It will be the first regular-season UH game in any sport on the Friendly Isle.
It continues a finals-week theme for UH, which has played off-island games on Hawaii and Maui in the past two years while the Stan Sheriff Center has been unavailable because of fall graduation.
This one will mean considerably more for Akana.
"I think for me, to be back home, in The Barn, coaching, having a game there with UH, that’s a dream come true," he said. "And the atmosphere, I’m excited for the people of Molokai. I call them my people. That’s what I know. I’m excited for them to experience that, and I think they’re going to be excited to watch an official game."
JARINN, FOUR YEARS Brandyn’s senior, would come to respect his little brother’s borderline-reckless slashing game and sweet shooting ability. Not back then, though, not before the two had standout prep careers at Molokai High and went on to bigger things. Jarinn became a three-year guard at UH, capped off with the 1994 WAC tournament championship team, and went on to scout and assist in the NBA for 10 years. Brandyn played college ball for Ken Wagner at Brigham Young-Hawaii and assisted there for a decade more before latching on with Gib Arnold’s new staff in Manoa in 2010.
"We never finished a game because we’ll fight. Either he’s fouling or I’m fouling him," said Jarinn, who now represents NBA players. "We don’t get through a game."
Friendly Isle, indeed.
The Akanas were tight-knit in actuality; that’s what happens when you grow up in a family of 10 children — including eight boys — far removed from most others on a 7,500-person island. Their father, Nick, a collegiate boxer at San Jose State, moved them there from Oahu when Brandyn was 2 to get away from the comparative hustle and bustle.
Brandyn and his siblings grew up learning from their father how to hunt and fish to support themselves.
"I think just growing up, it’s a different place. Our family loved it," said Brandyn, who takes a visit to his home island annually. "The people who live there love it. There’s not much to do as far as electronics, things to do as far as shopping. But there’s a whole bunch of other things you can do. … I just enjoyed growing up, because it taught me a lot of life skills. It taught me hard work. Taught me how to respect people, respect the land."
His basketball interest, meanwhile, began with those hard-knock lessons from his brother, who was looking for something faster paced than the most popular sport on the island, baseball.
By the time they hit Molokai High and helped their tiny school compete for Maui Interscholastic League titles over an eight-year span, their hoops education was advanced for two main reasons. First, Nick became the bishop at the local LDS church, allowing the Akana boys to play indoors at their leisure — a rarity on the island. Second, every year they attended clinics on Oahu from Chaminade coach Merv Lopes, a friend of his father’s at San Jose State whom the boys knew as "Uncle."
THESE DAYS, Akana, 38, oversees the UH point guards in practices and regularly helps with recruiting, particularly around the Pacific Rim. His ties to Asia were essential in making last summer’s "Warriors to Asia" international tour to China and Japan come to fruition.
Despite his lack of Division I experience, he was one of the first people Arnold interviewed as an assistant when he got the job.
"He’s been a perfect fit for me, this staff, this job," Arnold said. "I think he’s excellent. He could coach anywhere, Division I, and be successful. He can recruit, he knows the game, he’s bright, he’s articulate. I don’t want to pigeonhole him as just a local guy who’s coaching (here) because he’s local. He’s good. He’s really good. … If somebody called me from a mainland big-time school and asked about him, I would highly, highly recommend him, just as a coach in general and as a recruiter."
Jarinn Akana reacted with some surprise when his little brother wanted to get into coaching, that despite Brandyn’s reputation as an organized hard worker. Demands in the realm of coaching can be high.
"When I started to have some success, Brandyn was able to carve his own path," Jarinn said. "I was proud as an older brother, because there was a lot of pressure on him … he stuck with it."
Initially, the transition from coaching D-I after a decade-plus of being at D-II was eye-opening, in a similar manner from when Brandyn played his first college ball against 7-footers at BYUH; bigs topped off at about 6-2 in the Maui Interscholastic League.
He feels he’s settled in now, though.
"It’s been great for me. I’m still young, I still have a lot to learn," Akana said. "I’m not in a hurry. Many people are like, ‘Ahh, I’m trying to be a head coach.’ … I want to learn. Coach Arnold, the knowledge he has, and the other coaches here … what I’ve experienced in these three years, it’s been awesome."
HE WANTS TO give a little of it back on Saturday, in the first college game on the island since Chaminade lost to Cal State-Los Angeles in 1984. Akana, a seventh-grader, was an inspired ball boy at that game looking up at the towering bodies.
Years later, he’s set to bring hoops back and reunite the Akana hoops clan. The backdrop of Saturday’s game is something of a family reunion; Jarinn, Nick and Lopes are among those flying over, as well as the youngest of the 10 Akanas, Trenson, who also played at BYUH.
Jarinn, who now lives in Los Angeles with his family, is making the trip back to Molokai for what he estimates is the first time in seven or eight years.
"When Brandyn told me that they were going to go up there and play, I said, ‘Man, I gotta go do that, I gotta get back home,’ Jarinn said. "I’m looking forward to it, seeing all the people I grew up with. Going back to the gym where kind of everything started."
There’s a pretty good chance Brandyn Akana will look around The Barn for the next impressionable wide-eyed youngster and offer him a few words of wisdom.
"I hope, even if there’s one kid who looks and says, ‘Ho, I want to play basketball’ from seeing this, that’s what it’s all about, giving them an opportunity," Akana said.
"There’s a chance to play basketball anywhere. It just takes a lot of work."
