Bickering Alabama and UCF fans
should behave like their quarterbacks, who are longtime friends, writes Mike Bianchi.
Wouldn’t it be great if all of the other quarreling, quibbling players and fans at UCF and Alabama were more like their Hawaiianborn quarterbacks — McKenzie Milton and Tua Tagovailoa? Aloha Kakou.
“May there be love between us.”
In Hawaii, it is custom to greet people with a kiss on the cheek. And, so, when McKenzie and Tua talk — as they often do — there is no bickering back and forth about who deserves to call themselves national champions. There is only mutual admiration and respect among the boyhood buddies who now find themselves among the top quarterbacks in college football and Heisman Trophy contenders.
“Tua and I are good friends,” McKenzie told me on our Open Please turn to BIANCHI, C3
Mike radio show the other day. “We’ll joke around about the national championship stuff, but it’s all in good fun. He’s goodhearted and doesn’t take it personally. He’ll be the first one to give us praise about going unbeaten and he’ll say things like, ‘You guys were the only ones to go undefeated and beat the team that beat us.’ He’s such a humble guy. He doesn’t bash UCF like some of the other Alabama guys.”
The friendship between Tua and McKenzie goes back to grade school when both were on the same Pop Warner team. Tua was in the fifth grade and McKenzie was in the sixth. Tua was the quarterback; McKenzie was his wide receiver and running back.
“Then Tua moved to a team closer to where he lived,” McKenzie said. “My dad was our coach and we needed a quarterback, so that’s when I started playing QB.”
McKenzie was the hotshot youth-league quarterback for the Waipio Panthers; Tua starred for the Hammerheads at Ewa Beach. McKenzie went to high school in Mililani; Tua played at Saint Louis High School in nearby Honolulu. Both quarterbacks won state championships.
“Tua and I played against each other all throughout high school,” McKenzie recalled. “We would go to the same local football camps. We’ve been close for a long time. We roomed together at the Elite 11 [quarterback competition] and at the high school all-star game.”
Because Tua was a little bigger and considered to have superior arm strength, he became a marquee five-star recruit coming out of high school while Milton was a threestar.
“For me, I’ve always tried to compare myself to Tua and to pay attention to what he’s doing; to see if I’m right there with him or not far behind,” Milton said. “He’s always been the standard for me coming from Hawaii because he was one of the top QBs in the nation in high school.”
It seems only appropriate that UCF’s brand-new Heisman Trophy campaign for Milton pays tribute to his Hawaiian roots. The campaign has its own special Twitter hashtag [#HIsman] and website [MiltonForHIsman.KZ]. HIsman is a clever reference to the “HI’ postal code for Hawaii while the KZ domain references Milton’s own KZ (short for Kenzie) nickname.
“It means a lot to have the support of our mediarelations staff,” Milton said of the campaign . “At the same time, the focus is on the team. It’s about the team; it’s not just about me. There’s no individual success without team success. We have to attack this as a group. Whatever comes my way is because of what the team does this year.”
How ironic that one Milton’s chief competitors for the Heisman might well be Tagovailoa — his Polynesian pal.
“It’s been a lot of fun to see what he’s been able to do at Alabama and to do what he did in the national championship game,” McKenzie said of Tua coming off the bench and rallying the Tide to a dramatic overtime victory against Georgia. “He’s a good dude. … He’s a special player.”
Aloha Kakou.
“May there be love between us.” Much love, Tua. Much love, Kenzie. Much love, Alabama. Much love, UCF. Thanks to Milton and Tagovailoa, the time has come to lei down arms and kiss each other on the cheek.