The University of Hawaii football team had returned to Honolulu after a particularly tough road loss in the 1980s when a fan spied sportscaster Jim Leahey at the airport baggage claim carousel and quickly approached him.

“Mr. Leahey,” she inquired earnestly, “how come you couldn’t make them win?”

In more than a half-century as a voice of the Rainbow Warriors and Wahine, Leahey was peerless in the powers of description and insight but, alas, even in a legendary career, he was not imbued with the ability to change the fortunes of UH teams.

We know this because it took 11 years for the ’Bows to break a streak of 10 losses to Brigham Young in football and Leahey felt the pain of each loss and exulted in the long-awaited breakthrough triumph — “You ask yourself, is this the year? Is this the year? You better believe this IS the year!” — as much as any of us.

And punctuated it with, “This is better than statehood!”

As family and friends celebrate his career at a retirement gathering today, the game stands as one of his happiest memories and one of his most descriptive and seminal moments among the thousands of events he has broadcast across the spectrum of sports.

“The 56-14 victory over Brigham Young (in 1989) is what I remember most,” Leahey has said. “BYU came in arrogant, as always. After what was it —not winning for 10 straight years against BYU? — damn that was good. I think it was the best game that UH ever played. The sound, the excitement of that crowd, is something you’ll always remember.”

Leahey, 75, said, “There were so many touchdowns, so many great plays, the crowd was in a frenzy — an absolute frenzy — over the entire course of the game.”

The occasion was made more poignant personally because it was the last time he and long-time broadcast partner, Rick Blangiardi, worked together broadcasting a game, as Blangiardi, who had been general manager, at KHNL, was on his way to KING TV in Seattle.

Among the most meaningful congratulations for the quality of the broadcast, Leahey would say later, was one from his wife, Toni, a high school English teacher. “She critiqued my work and if she liked it, I knew it was a good job.”

But, then, describing Hawaii’s sports has been a Leahey family legacy almost since statehood, stretching across three generations.

Jim’s father, Chuck, who served aboard the USS Dobbin, a destroyer tender at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, went behind the microphone as the athletic director of the 14th Naval District and helped found the Rainbow Classic basketball tournament.

Jim first filled in for him during an illness, doing a boxing card from Schofield Barracks’ Conroy Bowl as a 15-year-old Saint Louis School student. Later they worked side-by-side on military, high school and UH events.

After returning from service in Vietnam, Jim took up what became the family business part-time while teaching at Campbell High and, then, full-time when KGMB-TV’s Bob Sevey made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Then, son Kanoa, who tagged along with Jim as a youngster, eventually followed the well-worn path. “I’d bring him along and he would fall asleep,” Jim recalls. “I thought, ‘Aah, he’s not interested.’”

But, Jim came to realize, “What he was doing was absorbing everything in his own way. And look at where it has gotten him. He’s worked hard at his craft, become a national-quality (broadcaster) and is traveling around and doing games for ESPN. I’m so proud of him and will enjoy watching him carry on.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.