Hawaii’s young athletes pay the price to attain their dreams

Hawaii has had previous golden eras in sports, but none like the current one. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

In almost every athletic endeavor imaginable, the islands are steadily producing elite world-class athletes. Since the turn of the millennium, there have been four Major League Baseball all-stars (Shane Victorino, Brandon League, Kurt Suzuki, and, now, Kirby Yates) and three Heisman Trophy finalists (Manti Te’o, winner Marcus Mariota and Tua Tagovailoa). Before 2000? One baseball all-star (Sid Fernandez) and one Heisman finalist (Herman Wedemeyer).

Much of the success is highly publicized. The parents and coaches of young athletes have seen that it can be done. So why not their kids?

Success begets success, right?

Some parents pay thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles with their kids to try to help them attain the skills and get the exposure they think their child needs to become a professional athlete or earn an athletic scholarship.

Only 2.8 percent of high school seniors who play football end up playing Division I, according to statistics from the NCAA.

This does not deter many.

“Parents are willing to pay anything in the hope that their kid will get a college scholarship or make it to the pros,” said Doris Sullivan, who was the president and director of the now-defunct Pacific Islands Athletic Alliance, which matched Hawaii student-athletes with colleges. “They don’t realize it’s such a small, small chance, even if their child is talented. But they will pay anything.”

Sullivan ceased operations in 2016 because demand got too large.

“It got bigger and bigger. That was OK, but I was getting less and less monetary support. I never paid myself a salary, because I never made enough to pay myself. People said, ‘You should charge what the big recruiting services charge,’ which was $2,500 to $4,000 dollars,” Sullivan said. “But we were a nonprofit, and my purpose was to serve all the kids, not just the ones with money. If we charged that we couldn’t help the kids from lower-income areas. And we couldn’t charge one group a certain amount and another group a different amount.”

Some young football players go to mainland camps; a particularly popular one for athletes from Hawaii is the All Poly Camp in Utah. It remains a destination despite NCAA legislation that allows Division I coaches to attend only camps that are on campuses that are hosts to Division I football programs. The Gridiron Performance Academy Showcase locally is also one of these “satellite” camps that fall under that restriction.

Prospects don’t necessarily need to go away to be discovered. Some of the coaches will come to them, at camps in Hawaii.

The 2019 Rainbow Warrior Football Elite Camp, which is among seven University of Hawaii camps for various sports, last month attracted high school players from around the state and coaches from UH and 21 other Division I universities.

The Hawaii talent pool is deep in many sports, especially football. That’s why coaches and high school players were gathered at the field at Kamehameha on a hot June afternoon.

Kamehameha coach Abu Ma’afala said he and his staff are “happy to host” the GPA Showcase because it is a way for prospects who aren’t of blue-chip or five-star status to get noticed by coaches from Division II and Division III college programs.

“Hawaii, from a recruiting standpoint, is at a disadvantage geographically,” Ma’afala said. “This is not just the big dogs. There’s a place for everyone to play, and this is an opportunity to be seen.”

Rich Miano is GPA’s executive director. It is an offshoot of the Hawaii Speed and Quickness clinics he started in the 1990s.

“If you’re a four- or five-star (athlete), you’re going to be found whether you come here or not,” said Miano, who was a University of Hawaii star and 11-year NFL player.

GPA’s fee of $149 (or often less, based on need) per participant is possible because of support from 23 corporations and private donations.

“We also subsidized all 27 college coaches,” Miano said. “Participants received two Nike shirts and meals.”

Also, 40 local coaches who ran the camp drills were paid.

“The most comprehensive and cheapest camp in the nation,” Miano said.

Although the high school football season is just a few months in the fall, flag football leagues and camps and clinics run year round.

Some of the more notable include the UH camp, Jr. Prep Sports America (which has a strong presence in Hawaii under the direction of Robert Faleafine), Brian Derby’s camp for offensive lineman, and Vince Passas’ weekly clinic for quarterbacks. Passas is noted for having coached Mariota and Tagovailoa at Saint Louis School, as well as at his clinic along with other notables, including McKenzie Milton and Jordan Ta’amu.

If there’s a position, there’s a clinic or a camp for it.

And just about any weekend on the calendar there are flag football leagues for just about all ages.

The same can be said for basketball clinics.

The granddaddy of them is the Kalakaua Clinic, which has been run by Dennis Agena for more than 40 years.

In 1966, Agena started teaching basketball fundamentals to a handful of kids in Kalihi to keep them off the streets. Since then, Agena, now 71, has taught thousands of boys and girls ballhandling skills.

“He’s a poster guy for doing it right,” said Keith Amemiya, former executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association. “He charges a nominal amount, and he does it purely for the love of the sport and the kids.”

Agena’s clinic now falls under a nonprofit called the Kalakaua Foundation and is held at Moanalua High School. Clinics are seasonal, with the 12 sessions starting Aug. 4 priced at $125 total.

“For a long time we were the only one in town,” said Agena, who still does some select individual coaching at no extra charge. “Things have really changed and it’s gotten very competitive. Some people are in it for the wrong reason, just to make money.”

Two of Agena’s most prized pupils were Derrick Low and Kyle Pape. The former ‘Iolani stars have started their own clinic called ProFormance Hawaii. They run weekday sessions in Kakaako and a larger Sunday clinic at Mid-Pacific Institute.

“The backbone is our Sunday clinic,” said Pape, who was Low’s teammate on Raiders state championship teams in the early 2000s.

The three sessions held each Sunday at MPI attract more than 200 boys and girls. As there is for Kalakaua, there is a waiting list, Pape said.

The Sunday clinic is $200 per 13-session season and the weekday sessions are $30.

Among the many other basketball clinics is one run by the 808 Basketball Club, also on Sundays, at Roosevelt Gym.

“It’s only $5 each time he goes,” said Danny Okinishi, whose son, Mattingly, 12, is a regular. “He likes that it’s close to home.”

All of this raises the questions: How much is too much? How young is too young? How many sports should children play?

There is widespread disagreement on whether it is healthier for athletes to specialize in one sport from an early age or play a wide variety of them.

“For some kids, depending what their goal is, it’s OK (to specialize at an early age),” said Gerald Oda, who coached the Honolulu team to the Little League World Series championship last year.

But regardless of if a child is playing other sports, Oda stresses the importance of not playing baseball year-round, and “shutting down” arms.

“From around late July or early August to November or December, it’s no baseball (for his club players),” Oda said. “Once we’re done with the last tournament, we shut down and do conditioning. Mostly bands and medicine balls. Nothing like lifting heavy weights. Squats, stretching, exercises specific for pitchers. These are exercises they’ll do all their life as baseball players.”

He encourages them to play a different sport during the time off if they choose. But they are not allowed to play baseball for another club. That’s not because he fears losing talented players, but because he doesn’t want them to get overuse injuries.

“If someone is playing for someone else, we cannot monitor how much they’re throwing,” Oda said.

And this applies not only to pitchers.

“We might have a long day of infield practice where the kids make a lot of throws,” he said.

If that were to come after a day that a youngster pitched several innings or had a similar practice for another team, it could cause serious arm injury.