Kani’s ‘can do’ spirit shines at mini-camp
Makani Kema-Kaleiwahea has been around the world. At times, he’s carried it on his shoulders, too.
His determination, drive and responsibilities won’t let his dream of playing pro football die. It took him to the deserts of Arizona, where he played Division I football with the Wildcats. It’s taken him to Germany, where he played for the Cologne Crocodiles of the GFL. It’s taken him to Amagasaki, Hyogo, Japan, where he suited up for the Asahi Soft Drink Challengers of the Japanese X-League.
And it’s brought him to Surrey, where he’s been part of the B.C. Lions’ mini-camp for rookies and players on tryout contracts.
“I’m a motor guy,” grinned the 6-foot-2, 240-pound defensive end. “(I’m) still chasing the dream, thousands of miles away from home. It really makes you think, ‘Do you love the game? Do you really want to play football and keep chasing the dream?’ And I’m still here, doing the same thing, trying to get better every day and prove what I’ve got to these coaches.”
The Honolulan’s enthusiasm and positivity are infectious — “Just call me Kani,” he’ll quickly say to everyone who frequently mangles his Hawaiian name — despite the barriers standing in his way of cracking the roster at a position stacked with veterans. But when you’ve endured — survived, really — what KemaKaleiwahea has in his life, the challenges of making a CFL roster fade into triviality. He and five siblings were placed in foster care when he was nine years old, his parents succumbing to drug addiction.
“They hung around the wrong crowd; they were obsessed with that dark side of life,” he said.
Nine years of a life of abuse in the system later, he’d earned a scholarship to the University of Arizona, bringing his family to the mainland, along with his high-school sweetheart, Brianna. The spectre of the abuse he suffered stayed with him, and he began to suspect it was happening to his siblings, too.
“I knew home was rough, so I’d pick them up, take them on trips around Arizona, hiking and whatnot. I was always curious, that, ‘Dang, maybe what happened to me when I was younger was happening to them.’ So I asked them individually about it, asked them whether they were being abused, sexually abused … and it was all of the above,” he said.
He called the police to report his foster parents, and called his girlfriend with a plan — he was going to adopt his siblings. A few days later, they were in court fighting for custody, and he became the youngest foster parent in the U.S.
Soon after, he and Brianna were married. One of his foster parents was jailed, one died.
Brianna and the Wildcats did what they could to support the family while Kema-Kaleiwahea played football, though the toll began to show. He’d have to leave practice early to pick up his kids from school, and his playing time dropped accordingly. The stress began to wear them down.
He decided to leave Arizona to move home. The University of Hawaii quickly offered him a scholarship. The decision was the right one for the family, but his football career had been set back. He went undrafted out of college after graduating in 2016 and began his nomadic journey around the globe.
“My role as a parent, and the reason I took the path that I did for my career, is I asked myself, ‘Is this how I want to end my career?’ What I did what I did was for them; to show them to never give up on your dream,” he said. “Just because the door may slam hard on your face, put you on your butt and break a couple teeth, you have to get back up and knock that door down. That’s what I did; I went overseas and knocked that door down.”