When you’re the quarterback of the No. 3-ranked college team in the country, with serious championship aspirations, I would suspect that you’d have a lot of thoughts on your mind and weight on your shoulders.
But Dillon Gabriel, who was a star at UCF and Oklahoma and is a Heisman Trophy favorite at his new school at Oregon, is mindful of where his star was actually born — at Mililani.
“I keep track a bunch,” the former Star-Advertiser Offensive Player of the Year said during a telephone interview following practice on Tuesday. “I watch high school football every week (when he’s not playing, of course), just keeping up with the scores.”
He was keenly aware that the Trojans hosted Saint Louis on Saturday and he knew that Mililani lost its standout QB Kini McMillan to an injury the week before against Kailua.
“I did (hear about it) … so unfortunate.” he said.
It was an injury to McKenzie Milton — coincidentally it happened against Kailua (“I know, Kailua, crazy, weird deal,” Gabriel said.) — that gave Gabriel, then a freshman, a shot with the varsity in 2015.
“Coach Rod (York) pulled me up (from junior varsity) and he told me I gotta figure it out real fast,” Gabriel recalled.
In his first varsity action, Gabriel was 10-for-19 for 81 yards while sharing duties with Kaysen Higa in a 60-36 victory over Moanalua.
“We had a lot of guys around me that made it so much easier — Vavae Malepeai, Kalakaua Timoteo, Andru Tovi on offense and a bunch of great players on defense and they helped me out a ton,” Gabriel said.
Gabriel returned the favor, helping lead Mililani to a state Division I title in 2016 . By his senior year in 2018, he was the team’s unquestioned leader and would cap his career with numerous accomplishments. Gabriel finished as the all-time career leader in passing yards and was named the All-State Offensive Player of the Year after leading the Trojans to a runner-up finish in the state Open Division championship.
Now, entering his sixth year in college, Gabriel finds himself in a similar leadership role.
“Everything’s going well,” he said. “It’s been fun. It’s been a grind for sure, but it’s been a lot of fun.”
After already earning his undergraduate degree in his first year of a two-year stay at Oklahoma, he’s taking online classes at Oregon “that allow me to be a little more flexible with my schedule.”
With the ubiquitous media hype enveloping him and the team, you wonder how Gabriel manages the expectations.
“You manage them by not listening to them,” he said. “You realize they have a job to do in getting everyone excited for the games and the season. And you realize you have a job to do as well.
“We have a high standard for ourselves, having a clear vision of what we want to do and what we want to accomplish”
Oregon bolted the Pac-12 and joined the Big Ten this season, and with that comes highly anticipated showdowns with Ohio State (Oct. 12 at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore.) and Michigan (Nov. 2 in the Big House at Ann Arbor). But Gabriel says he’s not looking past Idaho in its opener on Aug. 31.
“What I love about the game is every single week you have to come out and prove who you are,” he said, “and that’s not with words, that’s with action.”
While Gabriel is expected to be an influencer on the field, he wants to be one off it.
He says he feels “grateful” for having a role model such as Marcus Mariota and observed how he “represented Hawaii in such a powerful way in motivating and inspiring the younger generation — that’s me, right, my generation.
“Now that I’m in the same spot, I think it’s a reminder I represent more than myself. I was once a little kid that looked up to playing this position. So I hope we can be positive influences for the upcoming generation and represent Hawaii the right way.”
Gabriel has already started to make an off-field impact, starting with his alma mater.
“I had a great experience at Mililani and I’m so grateful for my upbringing and the culture that we lived in in Hawaii, being family oriented and everyone being so passionate about the game of football,” he said. “If I could (help) my alma mater in that way, people who wanna go chase the same dream, it’s something I want to do and get others to be part of it, too.”
The point of inflection occurred during the pandemic, when he returned for a four- to five-month period.
After getting a taste of big-time college athletics, he saw first hand the expansive gap between the haves of college and the have-nots of high school.
“When I came back (from college) during COVID for that four- to five-month period, I kind of recognized the differences between college resources and high school. And I know there of course are going to be differences, but just how different it was and the disparity, that was kinda eye-opening.”
It caused an awakening and Gabriel set a plan in motion.
Gabriel began small, providing uniforms, first with boys basketball, then girls basketball, softball, girls soccer. “It’s been spread throughout the whole athletic department,” he said.
Last year, with help and coordination of principal Fred Murphy, school athletic administrator Joy Matsukawa and coach York, Gabriel outfitted the football team.
“That was huge because, financially, that was the hardest team to provide things for,” Gabriel said.
Gabriel just wants the youth to experience similar to what he’s experienced, not necessarily going to Division I but “just having that high school football experience, the camaraderie, all the life lessons, discipline, you learn all that at a young age and that’s set you up for success in the real world. I’m a big believer of sports and extracurricular activities I think that definitely translates to success off the field, just in the future of life.”
Gabriel wasn’t finished with his message.
When asked if he had a message to Mililani or the team, the Mayor of Mililani said, “I do.”
Then he proceeded:
“With Mililani I hope that here and near future as well as the state of Hawaii, we look into public schools, we look into providing the best resources. It’s very clear, that it’s very expensive to live in Hawaii and there’s a lot of cost that comes with providing the best resources.
“But the people that we love and care about are going to these schools and we want to set them up for success in life, to be difference-makers not only in our community but the world. …
“I hope that this can be a project that you look at and say, ‘Hey how can we do this at other schools? How can we challenge each other to keep providing the best resources, not only in sports, but how do we create an environment that they want to learn in?’ … That’s why I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing to gather people to impact the community in a positive way. I can’t do it alone — no one can.
“ … It’s an open invitation to challenge one another, how can we help each other get better. Because at the end of the day, these are the kids who are going to be in my shoes down the road. … That’s something you want to help others accomplish. I love Hawaii. I love Mililani. I love the camaraderie, the competition, the passion and love for one another. It’s what makes Hawaii so special. I wanted to emphasize that. I love my high school sports and I love that time. So I think it’s pivotal.”
