By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Robert Kekaula is looking for work after being fired by KHNL.
Kekaula after firing:
‘I blew it big time’
Ex-KHNL sportscaster
By Tim Ryan
blames self for ouster
Star-BulletinThe quiet and modest central Oahu neighborhood of Kapolei seems like the last place you'd expect to find Hawaii's flashiest, most recognizable and certainly largest sportscaster. Make that former sportscaster.
"Wow, yeah, guess I am former. That hurts, man," said Robert Kekaula, who last week was fired from his sports anchor and University of Hawaii football analyst posts by KHNL News 8 following an altercation with a producer Oct. 10. "I never thought of myself as a former anything. But I blew it big time. I lost my dream job."
Kekaula first was suspended without pay for grabbing Alex McGehee, the executive producer of KHNL's news department, after a series of technical problems interrupted Kekaula's afternoon reports. McGehee was relieved of his duties Monday.
"I have no one to blame but myself," Kekaula said. "I had dreamed about this job since I was a kid . . ."
Kekaula said he doesn't know what his future holds. In Hawaii's tight sports anchor market, is there a spot for him? And if something did open up, would a local station be able to afford him? He was making $100,000 a year at KHNL.
Kekaula was halfway through a five-year contract when he was fired. The altercation allowed KHNL to fire him without a cash settlement, but the station can't stop him from taking a job with a competitor.
Kekaula said he wants to stay in television broadcasting. "The rest of my life would be incomplete without it," he said.
"Alex (McGehee) and I have joked that we should team up and do a morning radio show where we just argued," added Kekaula, who said the two have made up. "Guess we could do that now since KHNL fired him too."
Kekaula, 32, a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, has put "some feelers out" to local television news departments, but declined to elaborate.
"I'll never touch anyone again, never," he said. "I worry that I'll be blackballed and never allowed to work here again. I know the temperament issue will be brought up wherever I did go, and it should be."
Does Kekaula have an uncontrollable temper? Friends and co-workers who declined to be identified say no.
"He was a presence in the newsroom physically and otherwise, but this was out of character completely," one reporter said.
Said Kekaula: "I lost my cool a couple times before . . . But it was always a verbal thing. I've never touched anyone in a work setting."
So why did this incident turn physical? Kekaula said the technical glitches occurred one too many times.
But witnesses said the incident switched from verbal to physical after McGehee made a personal comment. "That's when I lost it," Kekaula said.
His unemployment has thrown his family -- a wife of three years and the couple's two children, a girl 10 years old and boy 10 months -- "a little topsy-turvy." Kekaula said he has received numerous calls from friends and relatives wanting to help.
"I think some people thought I was going to jump off the Pali over this," he said, laughing. "The worse part is that I'm a workaholic and I feel like a drug addict who suddenly goes cold turkey."
Kekaula said watching the University of Hawaii football games from home the last two weekends "burned a hole in my heart, I wanted to be there so badly."
Kekaula grew up doing things the hard way.
"If (my mother) said not to touch the stove because it was hot, I would touch it; if she said don't stick a finger in the plug, I would stick it in. I always make the big mistake no matter what I did. I'm stubborn."
Kekaula said racism had nothing to do with his firing.
"I never gave it a second thought. If they were racist I would never have been hired in the first place," he said. "And remember, I'm the only local anchor with a Hawaiian last name."
Kekaula said some people will look at his drop from celebrity and loss of a hefty salary as "the dumb Hawaiian syndrome."
"I really hope some people think that because I'll prove them wrong. I will get back on my feet. I will work my way up again. I was told a long time ago I could never make it in this business because I had too much local-boy mentality. And I still made it.
"I'm a better person for all my mistakes, even this one. There's no lesson learned better than from doing it the hard way."
Executive news producer Alex McGehee of KHNL News 8 was relieved of his duties Monday and has not been told if he will be allowed to return. McGehee relieved of duties
McGehee and sports anchor Robert Kekaula were involved in a verbal and brief physical dispute Oct. 10 in KHNL's newsroom. Kekaula grabbed McGehee by the shirt collar after they argued about technical problems in an early afternoon newscast. It became physical after McGehee called Kekaula "a fat ass," witnesses said.
Kekaula was fired last weekend from his $100,000-a-year job.
McGehee met privately with station executives Monday, at which time he was relieved of his duties.
"Let's say I'm considering my options," McGehee said from his home yesterday. He declined further comment on the advice of his attorney.
As for a return to KHNL, McGehee said he is still "trying to get a clarification on that."
KHNL general manager John Fink was not available for comment.
By Tim Ryan, Star-Bulletin
