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Even from a distance of 4,030 miles and what ended up being 15 years, Kaniela Aiona could see his future with remarkable clarity and heartfelt purpose.
In 2005, barely one season into a long hours, no-pay volunteer basketball coaching job at Webster University in Missouri, Aiona saw his life’s work in being a college head coach. And, he knew exactly where he wanted to do it, back on his native Big Island.
“I told him there weren’t many (college) coaching jobs there and it may or may not happen the way you want it to, but that’s where he had his mind set from the beginning,” recalls Webster coach Chris Bunch. “He was determined.”
So when the 37-year old Aiona was announced as the new Hawaii Hilo head coach Sunday, he said one of his first calls was to Bunch “to give him a huge ‘thank you’ for introducing me to the world of coaching and to helping me reach my goal.”
Of course, you could say Aiona was almost born to be a Vulcan. His father, Tommy, played for the legendary Jimmy Yagi and Ramon Goya back in the late 1960s days when it was known as Hilo College. Kaniela attended Yagi’s Vulcan camps, a summer Big Isle fixture, from elementary school days and thrilled at the exploits of fellow Honokaa High graduate Jayme Carvalho at the Hilo Civic Auditorium in the 1990s.
His great uncle, Jimmy Aiona, was a well-known referee on Oahu and another relative, Duke Aiona, played for Saint Louis School.
“I grew up with a familiarity of the Rainbows and Vulcans and it was inspiring for me to watch those teams,” Aiona said. “When I got into coaching, all those things registered with me. As the years went by, it became more and more special for me to want to get there.”
That pursuit took him from Webster, where he was a team captain, to paying his dues as graduate assistant at Central (Missouri) Methodist and full-time assistant jobs at Lake Forest (Ill.) College, Benedictine University (Ill.) and St. Leo (Fla.) before landing his first head coaching job at Menlo (Calif.) College five years ago.
At Menlo, he turned around a program coming off a 3-23 finish that hadn’t had a winning season in seven years and went 72-71. The Oaks were 20-11 in 2017-18 and were 19-8 this year before the impact of COVID-19 ended their season.
The task will be to do the same for the Vulcans, who haven’t had a winning season since 2011 and went 69-112 the past seven years.
Aiona said, “It has been a dream of mine to come back (to Hilo), but you never know. So much of it is about timing, getting the chance and being aligned with the athletic director and the administration on our common visions. And, I have that here and am excited about the possibilities of building the program.”
As a player, Aiona was an undersized 6-foot, 6-inch center who managed to earn all-conference honors with an inside ferocity that earned him the nickname “the Big Wave” and such a precise outside shooting touch that he barely disturbed the nets.
But it was his passion for the game that was quickly evident. The night before his first college game, legend has it that Aiona was so excited that he slept in his complete uniform.
As much as Aiona says he will relish his first game back in the Hilo Civic as their coach, he pledges not to sleep in a team uniform. But only because, he says, “ I don’t think I’d fit in a Vulcans uniform right now.”
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