Orlando businessman Sanjay “Sam” Srinivasan has never met quarterback McKenzie Milton, but like a lot of people around the University of Central Florida today, he can tell you something about the now-transplanted concept of “ohana” thanks to the Mililani High graduate.
As Milton lies in a Tampa hospital bed awaiting additional surgery after traumatic injuries to his right leg and knee suffered while being tackled in Friday’s victory over South Florida, the UCF community has quickly rallied around him.
What started with an outpouring of prayers and good wishes that has prompted public announcements of touching appreciation by Milton’s family, is mushrooming into a massive lei tribute.
Srinivasan and others have led a heartfelt campaign to have 40,000 Knights fans wearing lei at seventh-ranked UCF’s American Athletic Conference championship game against Memphis in Orlando on Saturday.
UCF spokesman Andy Seeley said what started out as strictly a grassroots effort “organically begun by our fans” has been embraced and escalated by the athletic department and student body.
The UCF athletics website Tuesday featured the floral-laden graphic “10HANA” with a lei draped over the numerals, representing Milton’s football jersey number.
Until Milton’s arrival in 2016, “ohana” had largely meant a line —“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten” — in the “Lilo and Stitch” movie.
But the coming of Milton has meant a deeper appreciation as they have seen what he has meant to the team and how his family has become part of theirs and vice versa. Earlier this season, his mother, Teresa, with 20-30 friends and family from Hawaii, did a TV segment on the meaning of “ohana.”
There is a surprisingly strong sense of community at a school as vast as UCF (59,972 undergraduate enrollment). “I’d like to think we’d support any of our students who have gone through what (Milton) has,” Seeley said. “But there’s no doubt he’s someone very special to us.”
UCF’s attachment to their record-setting quarterback goes beyond his place in leading the Knights to a 24-game winning streak that is the longest active in college football. “I’ve never met him myself,” Srinivasan said, “but I think the world of McKenzie — we all do — just from how he conducts himself in interviews and on campus.”
Srinivasan said, “He’s very proud of where he’s from and represents Hawaii very well. As an Asian-Indian, an Indian-American, I understand someone whose roots are very strong and I love to see that.”
That Milton would travel 4,737 miles cross country to cast his lot with a program that had gone 0-12 the season before his arrival endeared him early on. In Milton’s first home game, about 100 students turned out in aloha shirts to root for him, Seeley recalled.
In the feisty, driven 5-foot, 11-inch, 185-pound Milton, the Knights soon found somebody who embodied their underdog ethos and was not only up for challenging the existing order in college football, but a passionate leader of it.
Milton isn’t expected to be able to attend Saturday’s game but Tuesday offered encouragement to a meeting of the team’s quarterbacks in a Facetime session from his hospital room.
When Milton chose to remain at UCF and not transfer when Scott Frost, the coach who recruited him, left for Nebraska after the 13-0 season of 2017, it further cemented the relationship.
“He kind of helped build this place, and I think it (the lei display) it is going to show a lot of respect for him and what he’s done for this program,” tight end Michael Colubiale told the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday.
The “ohana” posting on the Knights’ website, “is more than just a catchy hashtag here,” Seeley said. “It is how we feel about him.”
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
