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STEPHEN TSAI / STSAI@STARADVERTISER.COM
Hawaiian Mission Academy Elementary School having a "Duck Day" for Marcus Mariota.
STEPHEN TSAI / STSAI@STARADVERTISER.COM
The lei that Marcus Mariota wore during the Heisman ceremony.
Saint Louis School students will cheer for alumnus Marcus Mariota in Monday’s national championship football game.
But they will have to do it after the final school bell.
Despite pleas for, at least, a half-day schedule, Saint Louis will be in full session.
“There will be enough time,” said Sione Thompson, assistant head of schools at Saint Louis.
School ends at 2:30 p.m. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:31 p.m. (Hawaii time).
The Saint Louis Alumni Association will have a viewing at their clubhouse on Monday afternoon.
On Sunday evening, an overflow gathering of 80 attended the Crusader Nation Alumni Pa’ina at the Love & War in Texas restaurant in Grapevine, Texas. The Saint Louis Alumni Association had expected only about 45 guests — the same number that attended the group’s Heisman party in New York in December.
Aulani Parker has kept the lei for the six Hawaii-raised players in the trunk of her rented SUV. Because temperatures have been in the 30s in North Texas, the trunk offered enough refrigeration to keep to the flowers fresh, Parker said.
It was a lei Mariota won during his Heisman speech that attracted national attention. Parker, with guidance from Uini Sekoa, created what was described as a “Samoan” lei. (Parker said it actually was Tongan, but was representative of “Polynesia.”)
Parker said the lei was a blend of hala, ti-leaf rosettes and pine. She created a similar lei for Mariota for the championship game.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story erroneously identified Parker’s father as Ron Marciel.
