Fifty-three years earlier, when he would gather them in huddles at Honolulu Stadium, it was understood that only Stan Cadiente, their quarterback, would speak while leading the Farrington Governors into a place in Hawaii sports lore.

But this past weekend, in the final hours before his death, it was a stream of his teammates from the Govs’ celebrated championship 1965 football team that came from far and wide to speak.

“He was morphined out, but you could see it in his eyes that he was happy to have them come around him one last time,” said Gordon Hunter, a lineman on the last public school team to win a title in the old Interscholastic League of Honolulu.

Cadiente, a central figure in the 16-6 Turkey Day victory over Kamehameha that was immortalized in Star-Bulletin columnist Jim Becker’s “The Day the Govs Won It All,” died Sunday at age 70 after a long bout with cancer, family and friends said.

The Govs were the scrappiest of underdogs. On the field they had lost to the Warriors 25-6 earlier in the season. Off of it, legend had it their bus was so decrepit that players once had to scurry off and man garden hoses to put out an engine fire.

In this they were forever united by the triumph that resonated with the Kalihi community — and beyond — for decades.

Though Cadiente passed for the Govs’ two touchdowns to Walter Rodrigues, ran for a 2-point conversion, intercepted a Warriors pass in the end zone and had net punts of 38, 44 and 47 yards in a remarkable three-way performance, it was as much his personality and leadership that prompted some to call him “Mr. Farrington.”

“You respected him because he wasn’t the biggest or the fastest but he had that uncanny will to win. He was a quiet, confident leader,” said Hunter, the team’s historian and spokesman.

A standout player in Pop Warner, Cadiente told friends that as a ninth-grader he turned down a scholarship offer to Punahou to stay with his Kalihi buddies. So deep was their bond that when the team bus would make its way back to campus after a game — win or lose — Cadiente would see to it that all chatter ceased as soon as they hit Waiakamilo Road, the point where the team would ritually begin singing the alma mater.

Cadiente was an interesting choice to lead the Govs at quarterback that year, having been a fullback on a 4-4 team the season before. But in pounding away with the Texas option that their head coach, the hard-driving Tom Kiyosaki employed, Cadiente found his calling. “He was inspiring, making the people around him play better,” Hunter said.

It was reinforced by warmth and humility. A teammate asked him about it and was told that when Cadiente had been an underclassman he hadn’t always been well treated by his seniors, so he wanted to make sure the younger players on his team had it better.

Cadiente was named the back of the year on the All-City football team and the Honolulu Quarterback Club’s male athlete of the year.

He went on to play defensive back at Arizona Western Junior College before returning home to work at Sears and the Honolulu Advertiser. He coached at his alma mater and Campbell.

Along the way he overcame two strokes and an earlier bout with cancer.

Services are pending.

“Nobody that played on the team with Stan will ever forget him, he was somebody that just stays etched in your mind,” Hunter said.

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