For Thursday’s University of Hawaii football challenge, it was not necessary to ask for a volunteer. Genta Ito, as always, was ready to serve.

Ito, a junior running back, easily won the gauntlet competition in which he had to catch passes while running the width of the field between two rows of Rainbow Warrior teammates. He completed the route a full second ahead of the second-fastest player.

Then again, it was not a surprising outcome for Ito, who has defied odds as long as his deltoid-length hair to earn berths on the depth chart and dean’s list.

Ito, who was raised in Inabe, is the only Japanese national to play football for UH since the program became a fully certified Division I member in 1975. Yasuo Yorita, who played defensive back in 1972, spent his early life in Japan but attended a high school in Hawaii.

“I used to play baseball and basketball,” said Ito, who admitted those sports were “not as fun or interesting. I wanted to try other sports. I was looking for something. I found football. It looked cool.”

He learned the sport through YouTube videos and the occasional football telecast. He played three seasons at Daini High School. At a friend’s urging, he decided to move to California and attend Santa Monica College, where he would try to join the school’s football team. There was a potential problem. He only knew a few English phrases.

“It was tough,” Ito said of his move to California. “It was scary.”

Tim Kaub, who was Santa Monica’s offensive coordinator at the time, said Ito quickly showed his attitude and aptitude for football. “His football IQ is extremely high,” Kaub said. “He understands concepts. His understanding trumps language. He really understands the how and the why of play designs and play philosophies and what each play is designed to do. The words don’t even mean anything. He can look at a drawing of X’s and O’s and know what to do.”

Ito said he learned English watching Harry Potter videos. After receiving an associate degree from Santa Monica, he sifted through acceptance letters from four-year colleges. Only UH invited Ito to play football. Kaub and UH coach Nick Rolovich are close friends.

On his first day in Hawaii the past summer, Ito ate a local moco. He repeated that order for the next week. “Only food I knew was loco moco,” he said, smiling.

As a redshirt in 2016, he was used on the scout team, portraying the coming opponent’s running back. At the team banquet, he was named the offensive scout of the year. This spring, he is part of the rotation at running back. He is 5 feet 7 and 185 pounds, but capable of bench pressing 325 pounds and running 40 yards in sub-4.6 seconds. He also is excelling in school. He has a 4.0 grade-point average. “Not too bad,” he said.