Kaipo McGuire was a star at St. Louis School.
He's now one of BYU's top receivers.
Associated Press photos

The names of the football players with Hawaii ties, who opted to go to the University of Utah and Brigham Young, are a veritable VIP cafe of former local high school standouts.

Itula Mili, Mark Atuaia and Kaipo McGuire are among nine players with Hawaii ties who now reside in Provo, Utah, while Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala, Chad Kauhaahaa, Nate Kia, Ryan Akina, Taulia Lave, Donny Utu, Darnell Arceneaux and Toni Fatafehi have Salt Lake City addresses.

The reasons for their departures to the continental United States range from just wanting to get away to there was no reason to remain home.

It's easy to see why top recruits depart for such exotic locales as Notre Dame, Southern California, UCLA and Washington.

You can also understand players with Mormon backgrounds choosing BYU, but Utah's recent ability to construct a 3,000-mile pipeline from Salt Lake City to Honolulu is an indication that all is not well on the local front.

If a sampling of these players' reasons for leaving is as scientific as an opinion poll, then Hawaii has several serious obstacles to overcome before the upper echelon of local talent will even give UH head coach Fred vonAppen the time of day.

"The biggest thing for a lot of guys is the need to get away," former St. Louis School standout McGuire said. "I knew I wanted to go away to school because I could always go back to Hawaii.

"Comparing BYU to Hawaii is like night and day. When I came out, it was the option vs. the pass, perennial WAC champ vs. middle of the pack, bowl game every year, play on TV. BYU was the whole shebang.

"The facilities here are also a huge difference. Our stadium, our basketball arena, our weight room and our indoor practice field are all unbelievable. We get brand-new shoes, brand-new gloves, brand-new everything.

"You stay in great hotels. You charter flights; all the little extras that make a difference during recruiting. Those things help you win and I think the biggest thing to attract local kids is winning. If you win, you'll get good recruits."

“I've grown up so much over here,
just being a man, kind of learning how to
get along and be by yourself.”
Mark Atuaia
BYU

Both learned quickly that being far from home wasn't all it's cracked up to be. The transition was difficult. But both believe they'll be better people for it.

"It wasn't what I thought it would be," Atuaia said. "It was real trying. It was tough to leave. It was tough to be away from my family. But doing that was probably the best move for me.

"I've grown up so much over here, just being a man, kind of learning how to get along and be by yourself. Itula and I have been here the longest of any Hawaii guys. We've shared a lot of ups and downs together.

"But he'll tell you it has been the best experience for both of us because it also helped prepare us for the next level. Before I came here, I could run. I could run forever. That's always been natural for me. But to block and to catch, that took time. Thanks to BYU, I'm ready for the next challenge."

So is Mili, who probably will be the first tight end picked in the 1997 NFL draft. He recently received an invitation to play in the Hula Bowl. The former Kahuku High standout is the nation's leading tight end in receptions with 39, and yards with 608.

When he came out with Atuaia in 1991, Hawaii didn't have a tight end in its spread option offense. The decision for him to leave was easy, and the right one on many different fronts.

"All my life, I've taken things a step at a time," Mili said in a recent interview with the Ogden Standard-Examiner. "This year, I'm liking school. I enjoy what I'm doing now. If I have an opportunity to play beyond college, that would be great. I don't really think much about the NFL.

"The college experience is more than what I expected. I have learned a lot of lessons in my life by coming here, being on my own, and disciplining myself athletically, academically and socially."

Those are areas to which Utah seniors Kia and Kauhaahaa can relate. Unlike BYU, playing for Utah in 1991 wasn't the vogue thing to do. In those days, Utah head coach Ron McBride didn't have an army of Polynesians to keep the new guys in line.

Kia and Kauhaahaa were among the first. Consequently, they are tight. On a football field, you rarely see one without the other. This strong bond is something the young Hawaii kids coming in are willing to buy into.

Yes, the facilities are nice. The coaches are fun to play for and the recognition is finally coming Utah's way. But if they didn't have each other to turn to, many of the local boys would have left on the first plane home.

"A lot of these guys, when they first come here, don't like it," Kauhaahaa said. "We help show them they can survive. For me, it was different. I wanted to get away. I didn't want to be like everybody else, to be the hometown hero.

"I wanted to do something new. It helps you mature. As soon as school is over, I'm going back home and be there the rest of my life. I made that decision before I left high school.

"It wasn't too bad coming here because there were a couple of guys already here like Roy Ma'afala. The guys on the team from Hawaii pretty much stick together. We have our own group. We don't want to leave each other's side.

"I just wish we would have had one more chance to play in Hawaii, so people could see how successful the local boys are up here.

"Everybody at home only knows the UH guys. Up here, we have our own little Hawaii, and we're all doing good. We're no joke. We're not only representing Utah, but Hawaii."

Kauhaahaa and Kia are the defensive bookends up front for the Utes. They have combined for 50 tackles and eight quarterback sacks.

Kauhaahaa is from Maui's Baldwin High; Kia is a Punahou School graduate. Like Kauhaahaa, he wanted to go away to school, partly because his parents made him, and partly because the Rainbows' program was lacking.

"It's too bad we can't play one more time in Hawaii, so we could kick some butt back home," Kia said. "I'm glad I came to Utah. You're not really challenging yourself if you stay home in that comfort zone where everybody can help you when you need it.

"I wasn't going to stay. I had that made up in my mind because my parents have been saying that since I was 3. Hawaii is not going anywhere. I can always go home, so I might as well enjoy the years over here that I have.

"It's a totally different scene. Playing here is better because of the lack of distractions. We don't have the beach. It gets so cold up here, none of us want to go outside. It's bothering some of the younger guys, but they'll adjust.

"They aren't homesick anymore. Chris and Donny said the same thing last year. They wanted to go home, but having us here shows them that we made it. And they'll show the guys after that."

Utu, Lave and Fuamatu-Ma'afala agreed with that assessment. Whenever Arceneaux starts to waver, they show him the way.

"We all felt homesick last year," said Lave, a former Waianae High standout linebacker. "But we stuck together. We all met during recruiting and kind of liked each other. So we stuck together, and decided to play here.

"Hawaii's program was kind of down and Utah was winning, so we wanted to come here. Everybody is really close, so that helps you through the bad times."

Said Utu, "It's been hard for me because I wanted to play right away. I knew I was going to redshirt, but that made it harder being here because I wasn't playing in the games. I'm still having to wait my turn.

"When I came out of Punahou, I knew I didn't want to play at Hawaii because of the option. A lot of the offensive guys felt that way. I might have stayed home if they had put in the West Coast offense before now. Me, Chris and Darnell have talked about that."

These days, Fuamatu-Ma'afala is sidelined with a knee injury, and Arceneaux has been relegated to the scout team. He misses Hawaii and might have stayed had the UH coaches talked to him before he signed his letter of intent.

"I'm going to get surgery soon because of the stress fracture in my leg," Arceneaux said. "Right now, they're letting me be the running quarterback because we're playing an option team this week.

"It might be a little tougher staying here, not being able to practice until next spring. It's a little cold here. It makes me want to go home, but I have all my friends here and the players that I've met make it easy to stay here.

"The tough thing is going from an all-state quarterback at home to being just another player at this level. No one really knows who you are. I guess that's a good thing because it makes you work harder to move back up.

"There's also no pressure because nobody expects anything from you like when I was the quarterback at St. Louis. Next year, it will be me and another junior college guy vying for the position, so I have to focus on that.

"I might have thought about Hawaii if the coaches had talked to me sooner. But I kind of knew early on I wanted to come here. Their program is moving in the right direction while Hawaii's still has a long way to go."

Levi K.O. Kealaluhi leads the WAC
in yards per catch at 20.2.
Associated Press

"He was a jokester, the team clown," Lee said. "Full of energy, always dancing and singing. He was the main attraction when we hosted a team from Japan for a preseason game."

As for football, Kealaluhi "had great hands and body control," Lee said. "But he was a little runt of a kid. About 5-foot-6 and 135 pounds."

After an uneventful two years at wide receiver, ("we throw about four times a game," Lee said), Kealaluhi moved with his family to California for his senior year.

"He called me later. I guess he was getting ready to go to college, and he asked for game film," Lee said. "I said, 'Levi, what game film? You didn't do anything.'"

Today, Kealaluhi has lots of footage. You can see it on ESPN almost every weekend. And it's not very funny at all to opposing defenses.

The little clown from Maui is now one of the main weapons in the Brigham Young University aerial attack. He's not very small anymore, either. Kealaluhi is 6-feet, 200 pounds.

And he has posted big numbers: Kealaluhi leads the Western Athletic Conference in yards per reception with 20.2. He has caught 33 balls for 667 yards and six touchdowns. Those stats are all better than what he did last year in his first season with the Cougars.

Kealaluhi's improbable route from Makawao to Provo included stops at Buena Vista High in Vista, Calif., where he rarely started, and Grossmont College in San Diego, where he finally blossomed.

"Nah, not even close," said Kealaluhi when asked if he thought he'd be enjoying the kind of success he is. "I was mostly hoping I could salvage a scholarship, but I never thought it would be like this year."

He's questionable for tomorrow's game against UTEP because of a knee injury, but Kealaluhi is looking forward to playing at Hawaii on Nov. 16. He's expecting many friends and family to attend.

Lee said he will try to be there, too. If he makes it, Kealaluhi can thank him in person for switching him from quarterback - which he played on the Maui junior varsity as a freshman - to wide receiver when he was brought up to the Saber varsity.

"It's kind of funny, because before I got switched from quarterback to receiver in high school, my dream was to run the option at UH," Kealaluhi said. "After junior college, I chose BYU because it was a passing team. I wanted to go to Hawaii, but there's nothing for me there. I'd be a receiver with no quarterbacks."

He said the decision really boiled down to Texas or BYU.

"I wanted to be around Polynesian people," Kealaluhi said. "When I went on the trip Marky (Atuaia) and Itula (Mili) made me fall in love with Provo."

And Provo fell in love with him in the first game of this season, when BYU beat Texas A&M, 41-37. Kealaluhi caught six passes for 151 yards and a touchdown.

That was the last time his folks, Edmund and Beverly, saw him play. They have since returned to Maui.

"Everything's been very exciting," said Beverly. "There's going to be a whole big bunch of us going over (to Oahu) for the Hawaii game. He hasn't been back since we left for California."

How did Levi (pronounced "LEH-vee") become K.O.?

"I'm not proud of it, but when I was a kid, I used to get in fights," he said. "They always ended in knockouts. Either I'd knock somebody out, or they'd knock me out. I'm not really that good of a fighter."

"He got past that right before high school. Then he settled down and became more of a wimp," Beverly said with a laugh. "Then when he went to the mainland he toughened up mentally."

Actually, judging by his football career, K.O. Kealaluhi is quite the battler. And ask opposing defensive backs about his ability to deliver a knockout punch.