Records were made to be broken, not manufactured.
Over the weekend Campbell quarterback Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele threw for 408 yards in a destruction of Farrington to give him 8,262 in his career. Or did it?
Something called the Hawaii Sports Radio Network proclaimed the Saber Hawaii’s all-time passing yardage leader over Mililani’s Dillon Gabriel on its broadcast and an immediate social media post. They didn’t put his total in a story by Paul Brecht, but the reporter did give a little context by pointing out that Sagapolutele’s 1,730 yards as a freshman for Saint Louis II got him to the point of breaking it.
You can argue all you want that those stats count, but I don’t think so. It’s true that Gabriel became the king because he played nine more games than Tua Tagovailoa but they were true varsity games. Saint Louis II plays a few varsity games but it hardly counts if you aren’t playing for a state tournament berth. If you take away his numbers against fellow JV teams from Punahou and Kamehameha, he is not there yet.
Back when hawaiiprepworld.com was a thing, we came up with rushing, passing and receiving record books for Oahu after summer months at UH’s Hamilton Library before the awesome newspapers.com hit the ‘net. In the first year of study we went back to 1999 so that we could confidently say we had records for the state championship era. Of course, that led to taking it back to the beginning of the Oahu Prep Bowl in 1973 and then Statehood in 1959. It was every bit as fun as it sounds, the hardest part was staying on task and not lingering on Jim Easterwood’s Mosi Tatupu stories or veering off course for 10 minutes because I just have to read an article on a Arizona State-BYU football game with the headline “Devils possess Mormons.”
All of the labor made it a creation dear to my heart. When we finished it, Saint Louis’ Timmy Chang was the unquestioned king of Hawaii prep quarterbacks and then was eclipsed by Tagovailoa and Gabriel. Joe Igber of ‘Iolani was the man at running back but was passed up by Vavae Malepeai of Mililani and Waipahu’s Alfred Failauga. For receivers, Kanawai Noa of Punahou surpassed Saint Louis legend Gerald Welch. School records are set every week, something we hadn’t enjoyed in these parts since Bill Kwon was covering the prep game.
So we have been at this for a while.
Sagapolutele did pass Chang (8,001 yards) and Tagovailoa (8,158) this week to take the third spot behind Gabriel (9,848) and Konawaena’s Keoki Alani (9,310), but apparently that wasn’t enough to celebrate. He will almost certainly overtake Gabriel this season, but he needed to be No. 1 immediately.
I’m glad that people are using the research, that’s what it is for and why it is not gathering dust in a former Honolulu Advertiser sportswriter’s sock drawer. Kyle Chinen of Hawaii News Now was quick to pick up the contrived new record and report it as fact with no context. That is too common these days and not limited to our little sand box.
At the end of the day, it is all just imperfect data and can be used however someone wants to. No two statisticians ever come away from a game with the same number of passing yards, yet the radio station and Hawaii Prep World agree that Dillon’s record mark is 9,848 on the number. Hmmmm.
This newspaper is counting down Shohei Ohtani’s march to a 50 home run-50 stolen base season despite the fact that with the bigger bases and weird pickoff rules the only thing stolen bases are good for are to remind us of Rickey Henderson’s greatness while playing a much harder game. Joe Buck can gush all he wants about Derek Jeter having the most postseason hits in MLB history and pretend Yogi Berra never existed in a time when the World Series was the only postseason. That is all fine, as long as you know the context that doesn’t fit in with the hype.
The three local sports media companies — The Star-Advertiser, KHON and scoringlive.com — that cover prep football the most consistently will publish their weekly football rankings this week and Campbell could be in the top spot on more than one of them for the first time in school history. There is a lot to celebrate in Ewa Beach, but Sagapolutele’s mythical passing record is not one of them just yet.
Hawaii career passing yards leaders
1. Dillon Gabriel (Mililani 2015-18) 9,848
2. Keoki Alani (Konawaena 2021-23) 9,310
3. Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele (Campbell 2022-2024) 8,262
4. Tua Tagovailoa (Saint Louis 2014-16) 8,158
5. Timmy Chang (Saint Louis 1997-99) 8,001
6. Andrew Manley (Leilehua 2007-09) 7,637
7. Tai-John Mizutani (‘Iolani 2015-17) 7,592
8. Easton Yoshino (Kaiser 2019-22) 7,309
9. McKenzie Milton (Mililani 2013-15) 7,303
10. Brett Kan (Punahou 2004-06) 7,188
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Reach Jerry Campany at jcampany@staradvertiser.com.
