When the Baldwin High class of 1963 gathered for its 50th reunion Saturday on Maui, some of the nearly 100 attendees hadn’t seen each other since graduation.
But nobody had to ask the most far-flung member of the group, Jesse Kuhaulua, what he’s been up to.
The 69-year-old Kuhaulua still has the gait and look of someone from the world of Japan’s national sport, where he made his name and fortune under the ring name “Takamiyama.”
It translates as mountain of the lofty view and fits him as a trailblazing 6-foot,
4-inch 400-pounder while paying tribute to his native Maui.
It is testament to how his name still resonates here 29 years after he last competed in a sumo match that he will be featured in an “Evening with Jesse” fundraiser Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.
Admission is free and Kuhaulua will be available for autographs and picture taking, with proceeds from a silent auction of sumo memorabilia benefiting the JCCH, officials said.
“I’m excited to be back in Hawaii, back on Maui,” Kuhaulua said. Indeed, in some ways, he will tell you, the visit represents coming full circle in a career he hadn’t even dared to imagine upon graduation from Baldwin.
His sport for the Bears had been football, and head coach Larry Shishido had encouraged several linemen, including Kuhaulua, who had suffered a leg injury in a car accident as a youth, to take up sumo to build strength.
Kuhaulua was the only one who persisted under the tutelage of Osamu Ogasawara. When Kuhaulua began to do well in local tournaments, his mother encouraged him.
“The reason I was getting interested and sticking with it was because I was winning and in amateur sumo when you win you can win prizes. I was winning a bottle of shoyu, or sugar, Spam… and my mother got all excited, saying, ‘You should go back next year.’ ”
He did and eventually caught the eye of scouts from Japan. “I didn’t know all this was happening back then, even when they brought me to Honolulu to compete against some sumotori from Japan.”
When he was offered the opportunity to go to Japan in 1964 and enter the pro ranks, Kuhaulua said he had little idea of carving out the long-shot chance of a career in the centuries-old sport. “Everybody told me how tough it would be, so I went just to see Japan because it was some place I had always wanted to go to.”
Through persistence in the ring and a dedication to immersing himself in the culture, Kuhaulua became the first foreigner to win the Emperor’s Cup, symbolic of a tournament title, and set ironman records before retiring in 1984. Two years later he opened his own stable in Tokyo and eventually produced the first foreign-born grand champion in Chad Rowan, who competed as Akebono.
“I have been very fortunate,” Kuhaulua said. “I had a lot of people supporting me here. It will be good to see some of them again.”
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
