STAR-ADVERTISERS ARTICLE: RECRUITING IN HAWAII HS FOOTBALL

[huki-lau-lau]

Give it up for Paul Honda, now this is a guy that has a passion for High School football and does his due diligence in his reporting, he's got his ear to the streets and eyes on the field. extra scoop rice for dis guy! Thank you for bringing it out to the public and exposing the ART or SCIENCE of recruiting in our state.

im sure he wont mind copy/paste, if its a problem let me know ill delete it.
heres the link also http://www.hawaiiprepworld.com/football ... ment-33064

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Arms race: Punahou yet to be challenged
by Paul Honda on October 15, 2014

So, is it art? Or is it science?

Is it pure intelligence? Or is it absolute passion?

Punahou is all of the above, and by nature of this sport called football, you can toss in elegant brutality and and surgery in chaos. The Buffanblu’s 47-7 wipeout of a very good Kamehameha squad re-emphasized one of the truths about Hawaii hi\gh school football in 2014: if you build it, they will come.

All that building has Punahou perched in a position atop the food chain. While Saint Louis had a longstanding dynasty under Cal Lee in the 1980s and ’90s, Punahou may have different competitive edges to keep the wins coming. Saint Louis made full use of the generous age-limit rule, opting to have student-athletes repeat a grade — like many other ILH programs — to get up to speed academically and added a year of physical growth.

When the HHSAA put a lid on player ages for its state tournaments, programs like Saint Louis had to adjust. But what the Crusaders still had are the same elements that make Punahou go: Charismatic leadership, non-stop work ethic, commitment to team, creative thinking, supportive administration. Oh, and unmatched talent from all over, particularly the North Shore.

The same factors are playing into Mililani’s development into the upper echelon. Magnet for talent creates on-campus and alumni electricity, something I think I shall call MAGNETRICITY. Goofy sounding, but this is the point: the lure of an elite academic system plus an uncompromising football culture is real. Last year, two all-state players from an ILH program told me that if they hadn’t gone to a private school, they would’ve played for Mililani. Not because they were asked. Not because it’s in their school district. It’s simply because of a winning tradition and atmosphere.

When the OIA’s administrators go to the league office and vote on a new transfer rule this month, odds are that it will not have a lot of wiggle room, that the new rule will strictly enforce a no-transfers-allowed-to-play stance starting with the 2015-16 academic year. You transfer from School A to School B, you can’t play for School B, not for one calendar year. Period. OIA executive director Raymond Fujino said that if the rule change passes, there will still be an appeals process. I’m thinking that means if a player can prove that he or she moved across district lines for legitimate reasons — parents’ job change, actually moving to a new district (proof of selling any previous property in the old one is part of what they look at), etc. — the appeals process should prove to be fair. Fair enough.

What is permitted in the ILH — a massive arms buildup by the elite — is something their OIA brethren frown upon, for the most part. In other words, if a public-school player plans on transferring to one of the OIA’s best football programs for football-only reasons, it won’t happen starting in August of ’15. A big reason for the movement to curtail transferring: the ILH draws new talent while the OIA cannibalizes. Talent flees the public-school system in favor of the ILH when it comes to Punahou, and now, Saint Louis with Lee’s return. In the OIA, talent has been switching schools, usually leaving smaller programs with lower enrollments, to play for the league’s best teams. The ones that grab the headlines and fill the air waves.

The ILH has seen its share of in-league transferring over the years and decades. It gets a lot of people upset. Every year, it seems, tremendous student-athletes at middle schools jump ship and go to Punahou for high school. By choice, of course. Sometimes it’s for financial reasons. Well, probably more than sometimes. That’s the reality.

What Saint Louis had to offer in the dynasty years was superb for its student-athletes and continues today. What Punahou offers is something every parent wants for his/her children: top-level education and — this is probably more important — prestige. Punahou looks great on the college application or resume. The network of alums is matched by few other institutions, if at all. And when the school’s financial aid kicks in, how would any parent or student-athlete say no?

So there you have it. When Punahou routs Saint Louis by 48 points and overpowers Kamehameha (this didn’t happen in the 1970s often), you have a new era in prep football. Punahou has the best of all worlds to offer, and when the OIA said (often) over the years that it was in no position to “merge” with the ILH for football purposes, it was not kidding. Punahou is so good, there is Division I college talent on the roster right now. Punahou would give a bunch of junior college teams and probably some Division II and III programs in the NCAA a good battle.

As a football community, fans can berate and debate, but this is something our culture created, not just old-time Saint Louis or today’s Punahou. Academics and athletics are pure passion for families here. Sometimes one more than the other. But they go hand in hand for a lot of campuses, and Punahou will continue to attract geniuses, athletes and genius athletes. Someone’s got to be at the top of the food chain.

[giversgain]

I agree 100%.
To add to Paul Honda's article, we will never see the upper echelon of schools (ILH and OIA) play in one division. Why? Simply because of the education factor. Say that that the powerhouse schools were to combine to form a division. Who is to stop the private schools from cannibalizing the football talent from the OIA schools when they play, especially on the JV level? All they need to do is dangle the education "carrot" in front of the player's parents. Okimoto's decision at Farrington to not scrimmage private schools in fear of recruitment is the a prime example of why the merger will not happen.

[Birdman316]

I wish Honda wouldn't champion Iolani's presence in D2 as much as he does. He ought to know that Iolani does not belong there. Iolani is recruiting just as much as anybody and is the football version of a 35-year old man who hits on underage girls because girls his age (or of legal age) won't give him the time of day.

[westside.gee]

Okimoto's decision at Farrington to not scrimmage private schools in fear of recruitment is the a prime example of why the merger will not happen.

Farrington did scrimmage Punahou this year! but that would be so sweet if the OIA coaches got together and boycotted the ILH leaving them to only play in their three team conference.

[giversgain]

Oops I stand corrected. I meant Damien (at the very least), due to it's proximity to Farrington. He did mention it, as I recall reading it somewhere.

[huki-lau-lau]

in all fairness kahuku is not completely innocent when it comes to transfers too. its just that we are so far out there in the country that its hard for a kid in ewa beach to say "heck with cambell i wanna play for kahuku!", they cant do that unless they have family out in kahuku and can move there which technically turns into a legal transfer. but as the article reports, mililani is in such a great location that a kid from waianae or kalihi could easily drive to school every day and it is happening everywhere there in central and leeward oahu.

its not a knock on mililani but as the article stated "if you build it they will come", york has done a great job with that program. the problem im having with that statement is that york built the elite success of the program off the backs of transfers. mililani has always had good atheletes but not enough to contend for titles, it wasnt until a few stud transfers last year had helped the trojans over the hump that the town got really energized and realistic about winning a state title.

kahuku has gone through the same "build it and they will come" process, but the difference is that we built it off the backs of our homegrown talent starting in the 70's/80's and my younger brother them continued to build it in the 90's contenting for prep bowl titles with st.louis but always coming up short, during these decades I couldnt tell you one football player that transfered to our school. inoke funaki years in 1999/2000 when kahuku finaly won a state title and the town went ballistic then i noticed at the turn of the decade that cousins or nephews from outside our district (heck out of state too) came to play football at kahuku.

another angle to kahukus "build it and they will come" success is not only did it attract a few new kids into the program but it also attracted the recruiting eyes of punahou and st.louis. every year we have twice as much kids transfering out of our program to the ILH then we do transfering in (if any on some years).

how can you compete with a private school educational environment and facilities? if we as a public school community are just going to lay down and accept the fact that its better for our kids to go to private school then public school then we should eliminate all inter-sports between the two conferences. what fun is it for the public schools when kamehameah wins all the girl volleyball tourney every year and iolani wins the basketball, and punahou wins everything else?

[HS Football Fanatic]

I agree 100%.
To add to Paul Honda's article, we will never see the upper echelon of schools (ILH and OIA) play in one division. Why? Simply because of the education factor. Say that that the powerhouse schools were to combine to form a division. Who is to stop the private schools from cannibalizing the football talent from the OIA schools when they play, especially on the JV level? All they need to do is dangle the education "carrot" in front of the player's parents. Okimoto's decision at Farrington to not scrimmage private schools in fear of recruitment is the a prime example of why the merger will not happen.

Didn't Farrington scrimmage Punahou and Kamehameha this year?
Also, my understanding is that Punahou is prostituting itself academically by having special classes--or at least, a separate academic track--for its football players. (Correct me if that's not true).

[huki-lau-lau]

Didn't Farrington scrimmage Punahou and Kamehameha this year?
Also, my understanding is that Punahou is prostituting itself academically by having special classes--or at least, a separate academic track--for its football players. (Correct me if that's not true).

the NFL is a billion dollar industry and it has crept its way into high school and popwarner levels, when kahuku won their first state championship in 2000 the program made over $100K in sales revenue off its merchandise. why would anyone ignore that and not want to join the action. mililani and york know that too and thats why they making trojan merchandise too but it wont sell if they are not winning, thus the recruiting.

do u know what college coaches are making? hundreds of thousands of dollars and there is plenty of room for assistant coaches and all other careers paths in the football industry, its no wonder punahou would want to add a list of millionare NFL players to its alumni along with their millionare businessmen alumni. congrats to the puns because Manti is on their alumni list instead of kahukus.

all about money my friend and football drives communities as well as our academic institutions.

[HS Football Fanatic]

I wish Honda wouldn't champion Iolani's presence in D2 as much as he does. He ought to know that Iolani does not belong there. Iolani is recruiting just as much as anybody and is the football version of a 35-year old man who hits on underage girls because girls his age (or of legal age) won't give him the time of day.

Sometimes I wonder whether Iolani really doesn't belong in D2 for football. This year, they have a big O-line. But most years, Iolani's football team is usually small both in terms of the physical size of the players, and in terms of the number of players on the team. Iolani rarely has a lot of depth at the positions. As I've said on another thread: It doesn't really matter if Iolani stays in D2, because if they win the ILH D2 title, the D2 state tournament will show us just how good they really are. Everything--or should we say, everyone, including Iolani--will shake-out during the D2 state tournament.

[HS Football Fanatic]

Okimoto's decision at Farrington to not scrimmage private schools in fear of recruitment is the a prime example of why the merger will not happen.

Farrington did scrimmage Punahou this year! but that would be so sweet if the OIA coaches got together and boycotted the ILH leaving them to only play in their three team conference.

Sometimes I think the ILH is overrated. In the ILH D1, how good are St Louis and Kamehameha? That's 2 / 3 of the ILH D1 right there. As I type this, St Louis is ranked #3 in the state, which I think is ridiculous. They may have a good passing game, but their D is atrocious (yielding 35 points to Damien). Someone on one of these threads either today or yesterday called Kamehameha "a very good team," which is also ridiculous. Kamehameha's running game is good only against teams with weak defenses. And, St Louis' O showed that Kamehameha's D is probably average at best.

[unpaid]

JMHO,

There are really only two options.

1.Make football players sit out a year when they transfer to another school period...don't care about public to private or private to public or public to public or private to private...or home school to well you get the idea ...you transfer to another school you sit out a year...end of discussion.There is a reason most college age players have to sit out a year when they transfer to another college.That reason is closely related to option number two.

2.Allow all football players to freely transfer and then watch the chaos...heh,heh!It will be worse than everything you have heard or read about in Hawaii so far.

3.Call me old school ,but isn't real recruiting done by college coaches to get high school players to receive a college scholy while playing football at said college?...when did real recruiting become a high school coach trying to get a high school player to play football at another high school?
Unfortunately,a sorry trend that has probably existed since the first year high school football was played back in the 1860's.

[Rocket95]

Extra scoop for Paul??? I guess that means Coach Okimoto deserves the whole plate.. Lol. While Paul Hondas job is to report on prep sport. It was actually Okimoto's comments on video last year after losing to Punahou that actually brought this recruiting thing to the forefront. There were a lot of chatter last with Kaiser and Mililani about recruiting. We all knew about the ILH for a long time. But Kaiser and Mililani last year took it to another level within the OIA. But when Okimoto actually came out and commented on it, the next week there was an article in the paper about it. Maybe Pauls article will make the paper or maybe it'll just stay on Hawaii Prep World. But in Okimoto's words "nobody really wants to bring up the R word". Lol

[HS Football Fanatic]

Extra scoop for Paul??? I guess that means Coach Okimoto deserves the whole plate.. Lol. While Paul Hondas job is to report on prep sport. It was actually Okimoto's comments on video last year after losing to Punahou that actually brought this recruiting thing to the forefront. There were a lot of chatter last with Kaiser and Mililani about recruiting. We all knew about the ILH for a long time. But Kaiser and Mililani last year took it to another level within the OIA. But when Okimoto actually came out and commented on it, the next week there was an article in the paper about it. Maybe Pauls article will make the paper or maybe it'll just stay on Hawaii Prep World. But in Okimoto's words "nobody really wants to bring up the R word". Lol

To me, if a school is recruiting, it should be called on it. And if the school is called on it, the coach should 'fess-up; anything less is duplicity. It shouldn't be a "dirty little secret." Besides, word gets around, anyway.

[twnoexcuses]

"Recruiting".

What does that mean?

Could someone please define it?

[Swag43]

I agree 100%.
To add to Paul Honda's article, we will never see the upper echelon of schools (ILH and OIA) play in one division. Why? Simply because of the education factor. Say that that the powerhouse schools were to combine to form a division. Who is to stop the private schools from cannibalizing the football talent from the OIA schools when they play, especially on the JV level? All they need to do is dangle the education "carrot" in front of the player's parents. Okimoto's decision at Farrington to not scrimmage private schools in fear of recruitment is the a prime example of why the merger will not happen.

Didn't Farrington scrimmage Punahou and Kamehameha this year?
Also, my understanding is that Punahou is prostituting itself academically by having special classes--or at least, a separate academic track--for its football players. (Correct me if that's not true).

wtf is correct me if I'm wrong...smh Bruh you either know for sure or stfu with your b!tch mouth...yeah that's what b!tches do run from the mouth not knowing if it's true or not