Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
ATLANTIC FINDS ENERGY BOOST
Haka performances, led by Kalani Ilimaleota, helping motivate Eagles to undefeated season
DELRAY BEACH — If you see the Atlantic football team yelling, screaming, dancing and sticking their tongues out, don’t be alarmed.
The Eagles are performing a version of the haka, a traditional Maori and Polynesian dance, taught to them by their quarterback, Kalani Ilimaleota.
“I think it helps the team bond,” he said. “Helps them to get to know everything else better.”
It starts relatively calmly, with Ilimaleota calling out to his teammates, who hiss in response. The quarterback calls again, and the team yells, slaps their arms and takes a knee.
Ilimaleota rouses his teammates, who stand back up and join him in a synchronized dance and chant, finishing with a wide-mouthed scream.
Ilimaleota, who is Hawaiian, said getting the team to do the haka was his and his mother’s idea. When he brought it to head coach T.J. Jackson, he didn’t have to do any convincing.
“Coach T.J. already wanted to do it,” Ilimaleota said. “He just needed somebody to do it.”
When the team found out about the choreographed traditional dance they’d be doing, they had mixed reactions. Some players were into it, while others were skeptical, Ilimaleota said.
“I wanted to do it, personally, because it’s always good to learn different cultures, different ethnicities,” offensive lineman Chris Touze said. “Our team comes from different places with all different backgrounds. We all come from different places, and him bringing that to us, that’s a great thing for our team.”
The haka has long been performed by sports teams and has become popularized around the world. The New Zealand national rugby team, the All Blacks, has performed the haka before matches for more than a century. Recently. LSU offensive end Breiden Fehoko went viral on social media by doing the haka with family members during LSU’s pregame “Tiger Walk.”
“I was like, ‘It looks cool, and I think if we did it, maybe other teams wouldn’t want to play with us because it looks intimidating,’ ” Touze said.
The Eagles started practicing the haka during the summer, and it caught on quickly.
“We just did it, and everybody else liked it,” Ilimaleota said.
If the haka gives the Eagles the edge, it’s showing. Atlantic beat No. 2 Dwyer and No. 3 Palm Beach Central early in the season and has kept its winning streak going through eight games, with two more games left in the season. The Eagles are No. 1 in both the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Palm Beach top 10 and in the Associated Press Class 8A state poll.
“If it’s giving us a boost,” Touze said, “I hope it takes us to states.”