Column: Amid horror, hardship and heartbreak, aloha spirit shines through
The outpouring of aloha during this dire time of need has been unbelievable, unprecedented, unfathomable, there are numerous adjectives that are appropriate here.
It has been my good fortune to cover much of that aspect of all that has happened in the wake of the wildfires that have devastated our island, at both of the major shelters in Central Maui, located at the Maui High School and War Memorial gymnasiums, over the last couple days.
While our newsroom staff of seven — yes, just seven — soldiers on remarkably through all of this, it is my absolute honor to work with superstars of their craft and it has brought me to near tears on several occasions in the last few days.
I rarely pat my co-workers on the back in public, but today I’m going to.
—Matt Thayer, his images of all this devastation are burned into my brain forever;
—Melissa Tanji, her thousands of words capturing all of this, I have no words to accurately convey how much she has done while also looking out for the well-being of her two young children;
—Sharon Shough and Lawrence Pascua, the copy editors who have put this all together;
—Stefanie Nakasone-Ramsey, our sports editor who makes me look good more times than I can count — she has risen to help out more than ever before and, believe me, her regular job and what she gets done on a daily basis is already astounding;
Then there is Colleen Uechi, our leader, our news editor, our beacon — she has simply been amazing through all of this.
Me, I’m simply trying to do my small part, but now there are searing questions that must be asked from my little neck of the woods.
All five prep football games this weekend involving Maui Interscholastic League teams have been canceled, a no-brainer with all of the devastation.
My first question is, will our MIL power Lahainaluna High School, winner of four HHSAA Division II titles from 2016-19 and a D-I state finalist in 2021, play football this season? My best guess is yes, but with the ashes of their town still flying in the wind, should they?
How will classes be held at the oldest school west of the Rockies, founded in 1831, with the demands of rebuilding Lahaina itself going on everywhere around them?
Houses have been lost for Lahainaluna coaches Dean Rickard, Todd Rickard, Neal Nakata, Kim Ball, Shane Cunanan, Terry Shibao and Conrad Bolor — and those are just the ones I’m aware of.
Dean Rickard, the Lunas cohead football coach, told me via text on Wednesday: “We going to need one rally point for the Ohana to stand strong for the long road ahead.”
I can think of no stronger rallying point than the “Red Tide from the West Side” that is Lahainaluna football fans watching their team. The Friday (and Saturday) night lights from Sue Cooley Stadium may be just what the doctor ordered to help instill a little bit of sanctuary for everyone involved.
It is almost certain that we will get news of players who have lost homes and loved ones. The entirety of this situation is going to become clear as the days go on and we simply need to brace ourselves for a whole lot more bad news, I believe.
I know there are things going on behind the scenes as we speak for both the Maui Jim Maui Invitational college basketball tournament, set for Nov. 20-22 at the Lahaina Civic Center (which I’m told is still standing), and The Sentry golf tournament that is scheduled for Jan. 4-7, 2024, at the Kapalua Plantation Course — that event is the season opener for the PGA Tour.
Gov. Josh Green said at his press conference on Thursday that 2,000 hotel rooms are needed to help house the folks who lost their homes, which would put a major crimp in the original plans for both events.
Organizers of those events are understandably evaluating the best way for them to help from long distance and I know we will hear something from each very soon.
Will those events be held here in the next few months? Should they go on?
There is certainly an opportunity here that I see with those two massive events — the donation announcements that are guaranteed to come soon from both of those entities are awesome and obviously needed, but there’s more opportunity here that I see.
How about we make sure that tickets to those events are made available for free and distributed to Maui folks who have lost everything? It would be a brief and well-deserved respite from the nightmares that a lot of people here are living through right now.
The stories of heroism here are also spreading around the world.
I have been contacted by The New York Times three times in the last two days. A radio host from Ireland emailed me asking for an interview, but the connection simply would not work.
I did a phone interview with the Washington Post for an hour on Friday morning and told what I knew of our island’s situation.
Ball told me Thursday of the harrowing escape his son Blake made from one of the two houses they lost — Blake Ball worked his way through thick smoke to rescue the family’s two dogs and then was able to barely make it out of the burning town in his car.
Then there are the dozens of Hawaii public school teachers who stepped up to help at the shelters, and many are still doing so — truly remarkable acts of kindness that happened simply because they were needed.
Kim Ball, the president of Hi-Tech Surf Sports, said that several of his surf company vendors have donated clothing and other essential items. Among those to step up are Vissla, Hurley, O’Neill, Billabong, Quiksilver, Salty Crew, Rip Curl, Da Kine and Catch Surf.
“Even the surfboard shapers on Oahu have contacted us about donating boards for raffles or fund-raisers or whatever,” Ball said Thursday. “It’s been really cool how the surf community has really stepped up.”
On Friday, Ball told me that the homes of Nakata, Cunanan, Bolor and Shibao are gone, all of them coaches of the Lunas’ powerhouse wrestling team that Ball himself was once in charge of — they are all also coaches in the Maui Style youth wrestling program around the island as well.
“They are the leaders of the wrestling clubs for the past 40 years,” Ball said in a text message. “The wrestling community on Oahu is doing a fundraiser for wrestling families affected.”
Collin Morikawa, the world’s 22nd-ranked golfer who has strong family ties to Maui, has pledged $1,000 per birdie that he makes through the FedEx Cup playoffs.
My guess is several of Morikawa’s young peers will follow his lead in donating. Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, several guys like that, simply love The Sentry and the Plantation Course where it is played.
We are going to learn much, much more in the coming days, weeks, months and perhaps even years about all of this. More than 1,000 folks are still missing and cadaver dogs have been called in to search the ruins in Lahaina.
But the final piece to come out of Pandora’s Box — a tale from Greek mythology where sickness, death and many other unspecified evils were unleashed on Earth — was hope.
I see plenty of that all over the place on this island, our home, right now. It’s called the spirit of aloha.