Football delivers hope, return to normalcy for town in Maui

LAHAINA, Hawaii — Fans decked in red streamed into the Lahainaluna High School football stadium, snacking on nachos and venison chili, bopping to the high school band’s rendition of “Sweet Caroline,” and exchanging long hugs with neighbors and classmates.

It was homecoming, and for many of the fans, coaches and the players themselves, being back at the stadium was the closest thing to feeling at home since the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century leveled their town.

“I don’t know if I can put into words how much it means to Lahaina,” said offensive lineman Morgan “Bula” Montgomery, who has lived in three different hotels with his family since their apartment building burned down. “Just looking in the stands, you see all the old-timers coming out, all the alumni and even the little kids — just all kind of excited, waiting for that first snap.”

Classes resumed last week at Lahainaluna High and at the two other public schools that survived the Aug. 8 fire, and on Saturday night, Lahainaluna’s varsity and junior varsity football teams played their first home games, both therapeutic wins, giving the community a glimmer of hope amid a tragedy that claimed at least 99 lives.

Tickets for homecoming at the 3,000-person-capacity stadium sold out in seven minutes, said Principal Richard Carosso — an indication of how badly the community needed it.

Before the fire, fans at the stadium could see the lights twinkling from the neighborhoods down below. Now, once the sun goes down, there is darkness.

As Mary-ann Kobatake arrived at the stadium to cheer on her son,

No. 33 James Lukela-kobatake, she refused to look toward the devastated town, where her own home was among the 2,200 buildings that burned.

“I no like look over there,” she said in Hawaii Pidgin, spoken by many in the crowd.

But being back on campus was comforting for the 1993 Lahainaluna graduate: “We still have a place we can come home to,” she said.

It was for Heather Filikitonga, too. A 2001 graduate and mother of a JV player, she could see the gutted remains of her apartment building from the stands.

“If they can get on the field and find some normalcy in their life,” she said of the players, “then I can do the same.”