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Their reasons for leaving are all different, but their feelings about coming home are all the same.
Saturday’s Polynesian Bowl is a showcase for some of the top high school football seniors in the country.
It’s an opportunity for the best Hawaii high school seniors to enjoy one final game at Aloha Stadium.
And for three players in particular, it’s a chance just to come back home.
“My biggest thing is just seeing my family,” quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa said Tuesday. “Seeing the people that couldn’t make it to the mainland to see me play. That’s the only reason I came back to Hawaii. To see my family.”
Tagovailoa, the younger brother of Tua, the Alabama quarterback who has already won a national championship and finished runner-up in the 2018 Heisman Trophy race, was a two-year starter at Kapolei as a freshman and sophomore.
He was on pace to shatter every Hawaii high school state football passing record when the family relocated to Alabama midway through his prep career.
“It was crazy for sure, moving and stuff like that, but I’ve been blessed,” Tagovailoa said. “Starting (as a freshman) early in Hawaii and knowing how big football is here and then moving to Alabama and making good friends and relationships and all that has been one of the most important parts of moving there.”
In two years at Thompson High in Alabaster, Ala., Tagovailoa threw for 7,504 yards and 71 touchdowns to finish 16th on the state’s career passing yardage list.
In two years in Hawaii, Tagovailoa is ninth on the state passing list with 6,703 yards and 64 touchdowns.
Combine the two, and Tagovailoa finished his prep career with 14,207 passing yards and 135 TDs.
“In my high school experience, I think the first two years were the hardest,” Tagovailoa said of his time at Kapolei. “Everyone was good. Whatever team you played was good.”
Treven Ma‘ae, a 6-foot-4 defensive end, was teammates with Tagovailoa that season. Ma‘ae spent his junior year at Kapolei but moved prior to his senior season to play at Bishop Gorman.
“Just a better opportunity for exposure and playing against the top talent, and prepare myself for the next level,” Ma‘ae said about leaving. “It happened pretty quickly actually.”
Ma‘ae played in some of the biggest games of the football season against Mater Dei (Calif.), De La Salle (Calif.) and Centennial (Ariz.). He signed with Oregon and will enroll in the summer.
“I never expected this, to have my choice of schools.” Ma‘ae said. “But I’m really happy I decided to sign with Oregon.”
The time between games at home is a lot longer for 6-foot-3 athlete Asa Turner, who relocated to Carlsbad (Calif.) for high school after growing up and playing Pop Warner football in Hawaii.
Turner, who is still deciding between Notre Dame and Washington for college, would have played at Mililani had he stayed. He was on an eighth-grade All-Star team with Tagovailoa and was on the same basketball team in elementary school as Dillon Gabriel, the state’s career passing record holder and reigning All-State offensive player of the year with the Trojans.
“It was pretty much my parents’ decision,” Turner said Wednesday about leaving. “I didn’t want to move, but they said it was for the better. My brother went to college up there and my sister went to college up there and it was easier to get recruited on the mainland so they moved me out there.”
Turner had only been back once to visit and is missing one thing in particular this week.
“I kind of wish we would have more time to go to the beach., but of course we’re here for football and I get that,” he said. “This is pretty cool because if I didn’t have this game, I probably wouldn’t have come back until after college because I would have been busy. I have this opportunity and I like it.”
POLYNESIAN BOWL 2019
Saturday, 7 p.m., Aloha Stadium
>> TV: CBS Sports Network
>> Radio: None
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