The Way I See It
I find it impossible to imagine Farrington football without Edward "Skippa" Diaz. ‘Skippa’ did things
his way -- and
did them rightWhat's Oahu without the Koolaus? What's Waikiki without Diamond Head?
I came to the Star-Bulletin 16 years ago, and that's when Skippa began his imposing presence on the Farrington sidelines. With granite mitts resting on his hips, the "Bull of Kalihi" scowled and growled at poor effort and bad calls.
Skippa was the no-nonsense shepherd of his street-tough Kalihi flock.
He kept them in line, baby, and no one did it better.
I recall how he handled a melee that erupted on the Farrington sideline in the 1990 Prep Bowl against St. Louis at Aloha Stadium. Plunging into the middle of the free-swinging affair, he punched Farrington helmets with his bare knuckles. When he had cleared a path through the middle and was able to get in their faces, he bellowed, "You wanna walk home?!"
Suddenly, it was quiet.
But God help anyone who tried to mess with Skippa's flock.
HE was known to go into the projects in the Kalihi district - even at night - "to have a talk" with some drug pusher who'd stalked his players. And when he found one of those "bananas," as he liked to call them, he'd "shake his tree a little."
Just imagine how it felt to receive a knock at the door and open it to find a man-mountain filling the doorway, crooning in his Satchmo voice, "You and me, bull, are gonna have words."
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
But the man with the grizzly bear physique wasn't afraid to show a remarkable sensitivity.
Skippa taped his fingers before games as a sign of sympathy for what his players faced on the gridiron.
If a player hustled his butt off, his reward was an embrace that must've felt like the Kalihi Valley walls were closing in.
I bet some of those guys - even the bigger ones like Patrick Kesi - wondered if they'd come out of those hugs alive.
The only person Skippa considered more important than himself on the sideline was the petite Wisconsin-born blonde listed as his "assistant coach."
Mary Diaz, his wife of 21 years and a vice-principal at Roosevelt High School, lovingly stood in harm's way next to Skippa at every game. She took stats for him and shared his every emotion on the field.
"She got clipped a couple of times out there," he said. "But she got right back up on her feet and didn't let it bother her."
AT Aloha Stadium, OIA teams would have their school anthems played by their bands. But Skippa made his players join hands and boom it out, a cappella. He said it had to come from the heart and it had to be heard from the windward side to the leeward side to the north shore.
A decibel lower was inexcusable.
People say he was the baddest of the bad in his youth, with the fists to back it up. In junior high, he could beat up an adult.
But he turned it around under the "tough love" guidance of some caring football coaches.
I think that's why the anthem is so emotional for him. Football was his means to the end of becoming a man of integrity. He wanted his players to understand that for themselves.
Under Skippa, winning was a goal but never an obsession. Winning never got in the way of teaching his kids the values he wanted them to learn.
That's what he thought football was all about.
I wish every prep coach did it that way.
Pat Bigold has covered sports for daily newspapers
in Hawaii and Massachusetts since 1978.