MAKAI ]
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Good sports
The Raiola family stays close despite
one member playing in the NFL
and another in the Big Ten
Like any good island parents, Tony and Wendy Raiola occasionally travel to the mainland to see their two expatriate sons.
It makes sense, since their oldest, Dominic, and his wife have a 3-year-old, Taylor, and they dote on their granddaughter whenever they get out to the Detroit suburb of Northville.
But the Raiolas also want to see him and their younger son at work -- or, rather, at play.
This is the time of year when the Raiolas are able to see their boys shine as two of the better football centers in the country: 25-year-old Dominic plays for the resurging Detroit Lions team in the National Football League, and 21-year-old Donovan is with the nationally ranked University of Wisconsin Badgers of the powerhouse Big Ten conference.
The Raiolas try to travel to see their sons play two to three times during the season, even though it's difficult to schedule a trip that will include seeing both sons play.
The Raiolas choose to make their long trips via first class, thanks to the tens of thousands of frequent-flyer miles they've racked up over the years, since their eldest started his mainland football career at the University of Nebraska.
A Saint Louis School graduate like his football-playing dad, Dominic distinguished himself as a consensus All-American by his junior year with the Cornhuskers. He was also the winner of the 2000 Rimington Trophy for being the best center in college football, and was rated top man at his position by most NFL scouts and analysts.
Dominic left school before entering his senior year because of his potential as an NFL player and, appropriately enough, since he came from Hawaii, he became the 50th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, the fifth overall by the Lions.
The question is, Will younger brother Donovan follow suit? The Kamehameha Schools grad made the honorable mention All-Big Ten team in his sophomore year with Wisconsin and was on the preseason watch list for this year's Rimington honor. Could he leave school as a junior as well to take his chances in the NFL Draft?
If he's even entertaining such a notion, he hasn't told his folks. Both the Raiolas said he's mostly talked about his team's aim of becoming national champions by the end of the season.
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BUT SOMETIMES, your kids aren't as forthcoming as you'd like them to be. And when one of them is a professional football player, that potential problem could be compounded by the occasional nicks and dings that come with the job.
But something like rapid heartbeat? That was something that Dominic wanted alleviated last Monday, the day after Detroit's important home game against Philadelphia.
Honoring his wishes, the family has kept quiet about this recurring condition -- dating from college days -- until news broke Thursday that Dominic had the troubled area singed to take care of the problem that flared up during this season's training camp.
"Guys like him," Tony said, "they're not only physically strong, but strong in will power as well, so he's always telling us, 'I'm all right.'
"But, finally, the team's trainer made an appointment for Dom to see one of the best heart doctors in Detroit. We called Dom later that afternoon after the surgical procedure, and we were glad to find out his wife, Yvonne, was there with him. In fact, the doctor had him up and walking soon afterward, and sent him home the next day.
"Good thing the team was on a bye week, because the doctor put a smile on Dom's face when he told him he should be ready for (today's) game against Atlanta.
"Because of that, I think he's more ready to go, because his awareness is a full 100 percent. I talked with him earlier through the week, and he's under the care of the trainer and watching his cardio."
It's just another instance in which the elder Raiola has played his self-described role as "brother-father" to one of his boys. And it shows how the entire family -- he and his wife, their 20-year-old daughter, Nicole, and grandmother Hano -- constantly keep their ties strong, regardless of the distance between them.
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TONY AND WENDY Raiola met in Miami about 28 years ago. Tony was a junior in the University of Miami's football program, and Wendy was a student in one of the city's small business colleges.
When Long Island, N.Y., native Wendy first met her future husband, "I didn't know what he was -- Spanish, Cuban?" But love blossomed as they got to know each other, and when Tony's playing career was cut short due to a shoulder injury in 1977, they opted to go back to his island home. They got married the following February.
Since then, Wendy says, "sports has always been a big part of our lives. The boys started playing baseball as kids and then went on to Pop Warner football. We were blessed that the boys never had any serious injuries at all," accelerated heartbeat notwithstanding.
When football season comes around every year, it's always a cause for celebration for the couple, who use the vacation time they've accrued as a veteran lineman for the phone company and a longtime bank loan processing officer. And while husband Tony enjoys watching the intricacies of the game -- whether watching his boys on satellite TV at Eastside Grill or in person at the packed stadiums they're playing any given Saturday or Sunday -- Wendy says she's "always got my binoculars with me at the games, focused on my boys.
"I'm concentrating on them so much that if the offense has a big play, I have to watch the replay on the scoreboard."
If the couple is watching a close game at home, she opts to work off her nervous energy cleaning the house while letting Tony keep tabs on the game.
Because of Tony's playing experience, he was always able to mix a father's love with a coach's eye for detail. He always documented his sons' high school games on home video, and made them critique their on-field performances at home later on. So it was no surprise that because of that kind of discipline, both Dominic and Donovan went on to receive college football scholarships.
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MARY KAHANO, Tony's mother, was the family's head cheerleader. Whether it was a baseball game, football game or Nicole's Sacred Hearts Academy basketball games, the woman her son affectionately called "our assistant coach" was in the stands, cheering her grandchildren on. "She made sure that someone from the family was at all of our kids' games." And she lived long enough to see both her grandsons play college ball on the mainland.
So it's no surprise that when "Grandma Hano" died at age 80 in January from liver cancer, she was buried with her grandsons' football jerseys.
Donovan pays tribute to her just before each game. "This year, he started pointing up to Grandma and Papa. I got to admit that got me glassy-eyed," Tony said.
DOMINIC AND DONOVAN were well prepared for the next step in their football careers when coaches of top-notch college football programs from the mainland came calling at the family's Kaimuki home as part of the intense recruitment process. They had some help from family friend Olin Kreutz (a Saint Louis graduate a couple of years older than Dominic, and currently a starter with the Chicago Bears) and a proven workout regimen at George Perry's garage gym in Kuliouou for promising local athletic prospects.
"The word was 'discipline' with my dad," said Tony, whose late father was a scrappy baseball player during the World War II years here. Both parents constantly tell their children never to quit and always finish what they've started.
"We tell them that in the long run we'll always be your coaches. So we appreciate how much they still communicate with us and listen to our advice."
The Raiolas attribute their children's positive attitudes toward life to their positive parenting. "They always knew that we were looking out for their best interests," Wendy said.
And that's what they'll be doing next Sunday. Tony and Wendy will be celebrating her birthday on that day by flying in to watch Dom's home game against division rival Green Bay.
What more could a mom want?
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