Top 10 Athletes From Hawaii
Barack Obama doesn't count: The 44th President was definitely born in Honolulu, and he may have been a decent high school basketball player, but he didn't play in college, much less the pros. And his ceremonial first pitches needed work. Let's just say that, by going to law school, he made the right career choice.
As opposed to alleged great high school athlete Donald Trump, who may be the last "president" born before Hawaiian Statehood, and apparently doesn't recognize that it happened.
Steve McGarrett doesn't count, either: Although the lead character of CBS' Hawaii Five-O reboot was a great high school quarterback, he did not continue his football playing while at the Naval Academy -- and, besides, like the original version played by Jack Lord, the new one played by Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin is fictional.
Anyway, unless otherwise stated, all of these athletes grew up in the State capital of Honolulu. Remember: The deciding factor as to what State to list an athlete with is not where they were born, but where they were raised and trained to play their sport.
Honorable Mention to Herman Wedemeyer of Hilo, Hawaii's 2nd-largest city, and the biggest on the "Big Island." A running back, he starred for St. Mary's College in the Bay Area, before playing in the All-America Football Conference in the late 1940s, earning the nicknames "The Flyin' Hawaiian" and "Squirmin' Herman." He later became an actor, playing Detective Sergeant Duke Lukela on the original version of Hawaii Five-O. He was elected to the college Football Hall of Fame.
Honorable Mention to Adrian Murrell of Wahiawa. He had the misfortune to play for the Jets and the Arizona Cardinals before they went from awful to good, the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys after they went from great to bad, and the Carolina Panthers between good stretches. But he still ran for 5,199 yards in an NFL career spanning 11 seasons.
Honorable Mention to Benny Agbayani. "The Hawaiian Hammer" actually played longer in Japan (2004-09) than he did in the North American major leagues (1998-2002), but the left fielder did help the Mets win the National League Pennant in 2000. Like earlier Met hero Sid Fernandez (more about whom later), he wore Number 50 in tribute to his home, the 50th State.
Honorable Mention to Deitre Collins. The University of Hawaii volleyball player won the Honda-Broderick Cup as the nation's top female collegiate athlete in 1982-83.
10. Marcus Mariota. The 1st Hawaiian to win the Heisman Trophy, he won it as a quarterback at the University of Oregon in 2014. Since 2015, he has been the starting quarterback for the Tennessee Titans. Barring injury, he should move up this list a bit.
9. Mosiula "Mosi" Tatupu. Born in Samoa, he starred as a running back at the University of Southern California (like Arizona and Arizona State, USC tapped into Samoa's base of large, strong young men to make them good college football players), and became a Pro Bowler for the New England Patriots. He was named to their 50th Anniversary Team.
He stayed in the Boston suburbs, and became a high school coach. Unfortunately, he was one of those players who suffered football-related brain damage, and died in 2010.
8. Mark Tuinei of Nanakuli. Born in Oceanside, California, he went to the Punahou School, a preppy private high school in Honolulu which has produced a lot of famous graduates, including President Obama. He starred as an offensive tackle at the University of Hawaii, and won Super Bowls XXVII, XXVIII and XXX with the Dallas Cowboys, making 2 Pro Bowls.
Unfortunately, he died in 1999 -- not from football-related trauma, but from something really stupid. The coroner said it was probably his first experience with heroin, and he'd mixed it with ecstasy. I'm not blaming this on his being a Dallas Cowboy, since he hadn't played a down with them in 2 years, but the Cowboys do have a bad drug legacy.
7. Jesse Sapolu. Born in Samoa, he starred as a center at the University of Hawaii, and won Super Bowls XIX, XXIII, XXIV and XXIX with the San Francisco 49ers. He was a 2-time All-Pro, and was good enough to last 15 seasons in the NFL, so he wasn't just along for the ride.
6. Sid Fernandez. He went 114-96 in a 15-year major league career, highlighted by being a part of the Mets' rotation during their 1984-90 revival. A fat lefthander -- a "portly portsider," or a "hefty lefty" -- with a nasty screwball, "El Sid" was a 2-time All-Star, making him the 1st Hawaii native to appear in a Major League Baseball All-Star game.
"El Sid" -- nicknamed after medieval Spanish hero El Cid, and the letters SSSSID replacing the K's in the "K Korner" in left field at Shea Stadium -- was the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, in relief of Ron Darling, holding the Boston Red Sox off long enough for the Met bats to bail them out. The Mets have won exactly 2 World Series games since.
He retired after the 1997 season. Recent reunions, such as on the anniversaries in 2006 and 2016 and the 2008 closing of Shea Stadium, show that he's one of the few 1986 Mets who's lost weight. He looks terrific. Although of Portuguese descent, and not having long hair or a mustache, he could once have been mistaken for a Samoan football player. Now, he looks like a Hawaiian native who used to surf, and could still do it.
5. Russ Francis. Born in Seattle, he became a 3-time Pro Bowl tight end with the New England Patriots, and won Super Bowl XIX with the San Francisco 49ers.
4. Clarence "Buster" Crabbe. Born in Oakland, California, he went to the Punahou School. He won the 400-meter freestyle swim at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Like Johnny Weissmuller before him, he starred as Tarzan, and took other jungle-man roles. In 1940, he replaced Weissmuller as the leading swimming attraction at Billy Rose's Aquacade at the New York World's Fair. In between, he starred as science fiction characters Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in film serials.
In 1979, 4 years before his death, he was cast in the campy NBC series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, as a retired fighter pilot named Brigadier Gordon, in a nod to his other spacely character. When that series' Buck, Gil Gerard, praised his flying, Crabbe said, "I've been doing this sort of thing since before you were born." The Buck character, in both versions, had been asleep for 500 years, so this was improbable. And Girard said, "You think so, old-timer?" And Crabbe said, "Young man, I know so." Crabbe first played Buck Rogers in 1939, and Gerard was born in 1943.
3. Warren Kealoha of Honolulu. Not the greatest competitive swimmer from Hawaii, or even of his own generation, but an Olympic Gold Medalist in the backstroke in 1920 at Antwerp, Belgium, and again in 1924 in Paris. He is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
2. Carl "Bobo" Olson of Honolulu. On October 21, 1953, he knocked out Randy Turpin at the old Madison Square Garden to become the Middleweight Champion of the World. Turpin held the title because he was a former Champion and the last man to have beaten Sugar Ray Robinson, who had forfeited the title. But Robinson got it back on December 9, 1955, knocking Olson out at Chicago Stadium.
They fought 4 times, and Robinson won them all. But Olson beat some great fighters: Turpin, Anton Raadik, Dave Sands, Kid Gavilan and Joey Maxim. The Ring magazine named him Fighter of the Year for 1953.
1. Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikhola Kahanamoku. Yes, "Duke" was his real name, not a nickname, like is was for pretty much anyone else called "Duke," including Edwin Donald Snider.
Duke's statue on Waikiki Beach
Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968) is the Father of Modern Surfing. Surfing is a competition, and it's certainly athletic, but it's not a traditional sport. But swimming is. In the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, he won a Gold Medal and a Silver Medal.
There was no 1916 Olympics because of World War I. At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, he won 2 more Gold Medals. At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, he won a Silver Medal and his brother Samuel Kahanamoku won a Bronze Medal, both in the same race in which Duke won Gold in the previous Olympics, the 100-meter freestyle, the "sprint" of Olympic swimming, but both were beaten by Johnny Weissmuller. He was a charter inductee into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Duke's greatest legacy has nothing to do with sports, or even with surfing in a competitive or artistic sense. While living in Newport Beach, California on June 14, 1925, he rescued 8 men from a fishing vessel that capsized in heavy surf while attempting to enter the city's harbor. There were 29 fishermen who went into the water, and 17 died. Using his surfboard, Duke was able to make quick trips back and forth to shore to increase the number of sailors rescued. Two other surfers saved 4 more fishermen. Newport's police chief at the time called Duke's efforts "the most superhuman surfboard rescue act the world has ever seen." It also caused U.S. lifeguards to begin using surfboards in their water rescues. Duke later served as Sheriff of Honolulu from 1932 until 1961.
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