Sidelines
Vili has us, but
we had him firstHE sits there, sometimes, and it all hits him at once. In the middle of all this craziness, in the midst of this whirlwind he has created, in the off moments of the excitement and the celebrity and all that has happened to him over these past two years, it hits him.
All the new thrills and new friends and more smiles and an ever-growing audience that claps so hard it feels like thunder. And what an amazing wave he's riding now.
"I think to myself, what I'm doing," Vili Fehoko is telling us. "Am I real? Am I here?"
But he is, here at the Honolulu Quarterback Club to tell his story and he has them again. His audience. He has them, he had them at hello, at the first line, the first laugh, the first time he alternated his easy smile with a hard, deadpan glare designed to tickle your insides and draw that laughter to your lips.
Maybe it is times like these when he can't believe it, or when the stadium shakes or when the Hawaii volleyball team wins a national title and he's somehow in the middle of it all. But no time for that now. Now an audience is riding the ride with him once again, and the great wave is rolling on.
"My wife is a" -- he stops for half a second now, playing it just right; a perfectly awkward pause for a playfully shameful admission, a -- "BYU alumnae." With this, Fehoko takes a step back and turns in her direction. "Boooo!"
And the people throw their heads back and laugh until the corners of their eyes grow moist.
THIS STORY BEGINS with a phone call, but we all knew that, so let's skip the part about how June Jones called him up one day and Vili didn't believe it really was the Hawaii coach. Gloss over how at first people didn't know what to think about some nut running around Aloha Stadium in a red skirt ("eh, it's the only skirt I got"). Let's just skim past how he's hailed as a hero in the parking lot, stuffed to exhaustion before every game by friendly tailgaters.
Because somehow along the way, it happened. He won over another audience. He became "the Warrior," the UH mascot, that crazy drummer you see on TV. Somewhere along the way, he had them, a crowd bigger than he had ever imagined, and he had them! The Polynesian Cultural Center headliner had struck gold, he'd hitched a ride on a rocket ship. He was becoming a statewide star.
It built slowly, an honor at first, but still just a job, and so at halftime he packed up his drums and went home. But Jones, having been alerted that his mascot was nowhere to be found in the fourth quarter, told Vili, Um, you know, we really wanted you there for the whole game. "And my wife says, 'See, honey, I told you!' " Vili says, and the Quarterback Club howls. "But she never tell me that!"
So he decided to get serious. If they wanted the real thing, the big show, he would give it to them. More drums, more makeup, more Vili. He would win them yet. He would do better. The next game, it would be different.
"I stayed the whole game and you what, I get to walk around the stadium and meet the fans, and people like, 'Eh! Good you heah. Because the odda guy, we wanted to keel 'um!' I was like, What!? I didn't know anything about that!
"I hope they don't kill me!"
They didn't. In fact, they had HIM, this time. He was the one won over, and he went home when the season was over and waited for that phone to ring again. And when it did, a month before the 2001 opener, and Jones asked if he was ready, the answer was easy: "Ohhhhhh, yeah. We're ready."
THE NEXT CHAPTER came with a revelation and a realization.
"My son tell me, 'Dad -- you know all the guys, you bring there?'
"What?
" 'Don't bring them.'
"I go, 'Why? '
" 'They are BYU fannnns.' "
This brings the house down. The Quarterback Club is rolling now.
"What happened?
" 'Well, you know every time we drum? -- They wish for UH to lose the game! Yeah, they cheering for the other team!' "
Well, Vili would not have THIS. It was a show, but it was personal now, too. These people had him. This team had him! There would be no BYU fans playing these drums! He decided it right then, right at that moment. His boys. His sons would play with him, they would win the crowd together.
"That night, no, next morning, we wake our neighbor, we DRUMMING!"
It was deeper now, it was better now, it was family now, and now they huddle up in the locker room before games, Vili feeling like a kid again, One Heart, One Beat, let's go turn 'em up! And then he and the boys are off and out into the bustle and the buzz, bursting to win over another crowd, ready to take them on another ride.
But they have him, too, that's the best part, that he is having the best ride of all in this deal. He's at the crest of an amazing wave.
"That's what touches me," he says now. "I walk through the stadium and some fan go, 'We been here for 20 years.' " (Wait for the punch line. Wait for it.) " 'Where were you!' "
So he mugs for the camera and he thumps the introductions and he carries Justin Ayat on his shoulders after a last-second win. And there he is, in ecstatic frenzy, in the midst of the whirlwind he has created, having the time of his life, playing the drum with his head.
"I come up to the sidelines, all the little kids go, 'Hey! Hey! I like do that!' I go, Oh," he says, giving advice on head safety, suddenly a 250-pound Groucho Marx, "don't do that!"
His audience roars, laughing with delight. The people can't help it. He has them now. He'd won them over long ago.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com