Neil Everett was always grateful for the tremendous opportunities and the big paycheck that being an ESPN SportsCenter anchor provided him.

But, still, one day — briefly, at least — he bristled in Bristol.

A recently distributed corporate memo obviously targeted him and his preferred attire.

“They have a new rule. No Hawaiian shirts,” Neil said.

Then he laughed.

“Good thing what I have are aloha shirts.”

It was 2006. He was still at the ESPN mothership, still early in his 23-year bi-coastal run as an ESPN anchor and personality that ended Friday night with his final SportsCenter, in Los Angeles.

I got to visit him back then because Michelle Wie and three other local girls were playing in the U.S. Women’s Open in Newport, R.I. I couldn’t get that close to Connecticut and not visit my old friend and favorite rec league basketball “coach” (he had one rule: “Shoot, or you’re coming out of the game!”)

I never wrote the dress code story before today because I didn’t want to get him in trouble with his bosses.

On that same day in July, 2006, he asked if I knew some young athletes from Hawaii he’d befriended long before.

“You heard of these kids named Weems?”

“There was a guy named Marcus Weems on the (University of Hawaii) football team,” I responded.

“Yeah, him, and his sister, Francesca,” Neil said.

I thought about it for a while before remembering her as a state champion sprinter from Kealakehe High School.

Neil then told me about how he met them when they were young children around 1990. They were homeless and often penniless, and spent a lot of time hanging around Fort Street Mall, where Neil then worked at Hawaii Pacific University. He’d buy them food and birthday gifts, and try to keep an eye on them.

Partly thanks to the kindness and caring of Neil and others, the brother and sister beat the odds. Both earned advanced college degrees and have gone on to successful professional careers; Marcus as an Army officer, Francesca in public relations.

Neil didn’t tell me about them to brag about being generous to kids in need; he just wanted to know if I knew anything about how they were doing — especially since he’d heard that Francesca was getting into sportscasting after earning a master’s at Cal.

“Didn’t know much about them till now,” I told him. “But if she ever comes back to Hawaii as a sportscaster, that will be one helluva story.”

That’s exactly what happened, eight years later.

In 2014, Francesca Weems got a job at the same station (now Hawaii News Now) where Neil Everett worked before he got his big break at ESPN.

Francesca is now a senior vice president and director of diversity, equity and inclusion at FleischmanHillard, one of the world’s most prominent communications firms.

She said, like many of us, she will miss seeing him on ESPN. But, like some of us, she knows he’s much more than a funny guy who talks about sports.

“Neil is one of the best human beings I know. … He is a beacon of hope,” she said. “His fight for the underdog and underrepresented communities continues to inspire me.”

It might be hard to think of him as one now, but Rob DeMello was an underdog once, too.

The longtime sports director at KHON2 wanted to be a sportscaster in Hawaii for as long as he could remember. But by the time he was a teen he’d given up on that dream because of poor school grades.

Through a chance meeting via a friend, Nathaniel Conley, and KGMB meteorologist Kim Gennaula, Rob was put in touch with Neil, and allowed to shadow him for a day at work.

Neil offered Rob a deal: He could keep coming back to the station — but only if he brought evidence of improving grades, every week.

“My life changed forever,” Rob said. “Neil took a 15-year-old failing high school student, took him under his wing and gave him the one thing he needed most in the entire world at that time, which was motivation, and allowed him to live out his dream.”

When he was 19, Rob was attending HPU on a full scholarship when he “got a call from KITV, offering me a job I didn’t even apply for,” he said. “When you’re given that opportunity, don’t let it slip away.”

Neil, who had already left for ESPN, almost did.

He got hired off of a second-chance interview, after botching the first years earlier because he didn’t know enough about hockey. But he knew about learning from mistakes, and made himself into an NHL expert when he got another shot.

Later, his interviews with Barry Melrose became some of the most entertaining SportsCenter segments, whether you like hockey or not.

“Everyone admires Neil as this amazing sportscaster, which he absolutely is, but truly he is the most selfless, caring, empathetic, and supportive guy I’ve ever had the pleasure to be around,” Rob said. “He is the epitome of what the Aloha Spirit is all about.”

When I heard about his pending departure earlier this month, I couldn’t think of anything better to text Neil than the old cliche:

“One door closes, another opens.”

His response?

“Kick it open!!!”