Sidelines
Kajioka comes all
the way off the benchON the first play of the first practice on the first day of the Hawaii football season, Shayne Kajioka took his place as a starter on the UH offensive line.
By the numbers, on paper, if you think with your brain instead of your heart, there shouldn't have been anything special or significant about this fact. But it was, yesterday. And you could see it if you looked, if you could interpret the "Yes!" in the tilt of Kajioka's head as that first play was called in the huddle, the "Here we go!" in the twitch of his shoulders held high.
It was very special, indeed.
"It's a proud moment for me," UH offensive line coach Mike Cavanaugh said.
But then, he knows the story.
Kajioka had been lined up with the first team before. Countless times. A few of them in games, even. But this was different, very different. This was an arrival. This was triumph on a beautiful opening day.
"It's almost like the same thing," Kajioka said. "Except that now, I'm the man. I'm the big man."
Kajioka has always been with the first team, it seems, but never in it. He has always been in the top six in Cavanaugh's offensive line, but not the top five. The coach always said Kajioka was good enough to start, but Kajioka never did.
In 2000 he made the top lineup for three games. Technically, if you want to use your brain, he was a starter. But he wasn't, really. Not in the way it mattered. Not in the heart. The job was never really his.
He was just watching over it for a while.
In practice, he was a full-fledged member of the club. No scout team for him. Kajioka was a first-team guy, right there with the rest of them. He knew all the assignments, he was always ready. He was in on everything. But yet at the same time, he wasn't. And on Saturday nights, he knew it. Everybody knew it.
"Yeah, it's hard because Vince (Manuwai), Lui (Fuata), all them, Manly (Kanoa), were all my friends and the only way, I'm thinking in my head, that I'm going to play is to watch them get hurt," Kajioka said. "And I don't really want to do that. You don't want to wish injury upon any one of your friends.
"So I just had to stand on the sideline, you know, just stand there and think, 'There's no way I'm going in this game."
He shared so much. And nothing at all, standing, watching. The odd man out. The frustrating contradiction: the guy who was good enough to start, but didn't.
Until yesterday. Until today.
Now, he's not just good enough to start.
He is starting. At last, he's starting.
"I've got all this adrenaline going through me. But in my head I'm like, you know what, you've been here, you've done this before," Kajioka said. "Just calm down and just do what you do and I've been doing it every day. That's what I keep telling myself."
It's been a long journey of being tantalizingly close yet so far away, of being in, yet out. Of working and waiting, of smiling through it all, being one of the guys in every way but one.
"He's always hung in there," Cavanaugh said. "He's always worked hard."
He's always been right there.
But Kajioka is like a new man now, Cavanaugh said. After entering the program four years ago weighing more than 380 pounds, Kajioka is now, thanks to willpower and hard work, down to an athletic 307. He's not just good enough to start. He's better. And Cavanaugh, as he is wont to do, is predicting big things.
"One thing he had difficulty with was pulling and trapping," the coach said. "And now you see him today. (Cavanaugh makes a 'whoosh!' sound.) He's so much quicker and faster and more explosive."
Confidence will do that for you. Before, Kajioka always believed he could play, and Cavanaugh did too. But now they both really know it. Now Cavanaugh has proven it. Kajioka is no caretaker now. The job is really his.
"I think there is a difference," Cavanaugh said. "Obviously, he's been a pinch hitter. And now he's the guy."
And he knows it.
And he loves it.
And you can see it.
Now he's finally home. He's arrived and he's in, all the way, with both feet. A great story on a sunny day.
"Now I don't have to stand on the sideline and watch everybody," Kajioka said. "Now I know that I'm going to be in the game, and playing, with everybody else. Going through everything, wins, losses, all the hardships, all the trials. And to me, that's one of the best things I could ever do."
His proud coach is excited. Cavanaugh has watched Kajioka make a long journey to get here. But now the best part, they both know, is still yet to come.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com