Sidelines
Through good and bad,
what a year it’s beenTHE calendar on the wall shocks me. It's been over a year at the best job I've ever had.
That's a length of time that slaps you in the face. A year! A year's worth of columns.
I've written good ones and bad ones and ones that I've agonized over into the night, wincing as I grab the paper the next day.
People used to ask me what I wanted to do.
This.
Here.
And what a first year it was ...
I've met Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bela Karolyi, Kobe Bryant, Tita Ahuna. And the great Mr. Keo Nakama.
I've seen Tiger and Annika and I've written about sailing dentists.
I've been introduced by Les Keiter, the General himself.
I've written about extreme fighting and fencing and ancient Hawaiians inventing bobsledding. (Or at least that was one crazy theory.)
I've been to junior golf tournaments and yacht races and pre-fight physicals in the darkness of an oil wrestling bar.
I was there when Ashley Lelie caught that pass in the corner to beat Fresno State, and every arm in Aloha Stadium signaled touchdown at once.
And afterward, Rolo looked me in the eye and said, "I'll never forget this game. I'll never forget this game."
I believe him.
And the retired golf gang in Kahuku, laughing and telling lies, told me the secret to life: Anybody younger than you is one young punk. Anybody older than you is one old fut.
I live those words every day.
I've heard a coach tell his team not to pay any attention to the media, then months later hand out 60 photocopies of my column before the big game.
I've had people politely ask me to e-mail them a free copy of something I've written, so they can write me a pilau letter about it.
I walked the picket line with a striking coach. I got scoldings from a high school principal.
I've covered boxing and, like a dummy, left out the best line I've never written: "There is blood on my notebook."
(There was.)
I've heard Savo sing a Yugoslavian folk song, and gotten Halloween candy from Margaret Vakasausau and was heckled by Manly Kanoa on my Football Fever picks.
And I saw Coach Les safe at home plate one last time.
I saw the sun rise over Kona as hundreds of Ironman triathletes splashed in the bay, and felt the warm glow at sunset as they came stumbling triumphantly, heroically home.
I hoped, in a way, you saw all those things, too.
And I heard from you, with your e-mails and phone calls and even a postcard or a scribbled letter or two. Or when you caught me at the game.
The best one came the week after a football game that had gone beyond sloppy and into offensive, and June Jones said, in front of the assembled media: "Kalani, you said that game stunk?"
"It did, Coach."
"You should have been here three years ago," he said. Pause. "They all did."
A better line than anything I'd written all year.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com