I call my grandmother in Florida every Sunday and we never have any shortage of sports to talk about.
This week, on her 76th Mother’s Day, it starts with the usual Tampa Bay Rays — she never misses a game, even if she has to watch it the next day because Hawaii isn’t the only place that feeds the TV monster by playing games after bedtime — and then we compare scores and shots from our weekly golf outings. The 94-year old is a masterful bunker player and plays fast, getting off the course before 10 a.m. to save energy for bowling, and we recount each other’s rounds.
And then things get really weird.
She tries to tell me about how she got a “Chuck Norris” in cornhole and I try to understand just what in the world cornhole is other than some kind of drunk party game. I guess it is a kind of a big deal among the elderly set in the snowbird states and easy for me to dismiss. I’d rather she remind me how she never let me beat her in horseshoes despite spotting me 20 points in every game, I can sadly relate to that. I don’t remember a lot of things, but I remember those beatings.
I try to tell her about my corner of the world and my mutterings are as foreign to her as hers are to me. But then it dawns on me just how special this place is.
I explain that I spent my Saturday watching high school kids in a state-sanctioned judo tournament while most of my peers were down the road enthralled by our first girls flag football championship and I can hear the confusion from nearly 5,000 miles away.
Girls playing football? High School kids throwing each other like bales of hay? All she can say is ‘we didn’t have that in my day.’
This has to be the only state in the union — is union the right word nowadays? — where those two things happened at the same time.
The Hawaii High School Athletic Association has always been ahead of the game. It was the first to sanction girls wrestling in 1998 and the islands didn’t sink despite the anguish expressed to the local newspapers’ editorial pages, so it was on. Here we are a quarter of a century later and it is the fastest growing sport in the nation. Try telling Granny about future girls wearing singlets and doling out concussions to each other for entertainment and see how far you get.
Air riflery followed in 1999 despite similar reservations, opening the door for cheerleading (2002), canoe paddling (2002), judo (2003), and girls water polo (2004). More recently we got esports in 2019 before the HHSAA became the 12th state to sanction flag football last year.
Surfing is up next after getting through both houses of the government, a long journey that was approved by the Department of Education more than two decades ago. Holua sledding and konane can’t be far behind, can they?
It’s probably a good thing we don’t have those ancient pursuits as prep sports yet, because we already know that Pearl City’s Chloe Obuhanych would keep all of the hardware for herself. The Charger is working on a rare grand slam in judo to go with state titles in air riflery and wrestling, undoubtedly the only athlete in the country that can claim that trifecta. Those opportunities didn’t exist when I first landed on these fair shores and legends like Tita Ahuna and Natasha Kai had to settle for dominating the traditional pursuits like basketball, volleyball, soccer and track and field.
The HHSAA handed out 49 koa trophies to teams this year, in 2001 it was almost half that with 25. Every island got at least one this year with the ILH leading the way with 27 and the OIA earning 13, its most since 2015.
When I was coming up in the frozen wasteland that is Northern New York, it was the now-burgeoning sport of lacrosse and other states have their fair share of eclectic offerings like bass fishing, rodeo and orienteering but no place has as many wonderful fringe sports this side of the Olympics.
Count it as reason No. 2,606 why Hawaii is the best place on Earth.
Sure, it is hard to explain to Granny that I live in a place where the local baseball team can play in a nearly empty stadium next door to a men’s volleyball match with 10,000 screaming fans.
But that is part of what makes this place special. It’s different, and that makes it better.
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Reach Jerry Campany at jcampany@staradvertiser.com.
