Spirit of Aloha | Articles | Under the Hula Moon | January/February 2008

Under the Hula Moon
By: JOCELYN FUJII

The Virgin Sports Fan

PHOTO: CW PACK SPORTS

This is not a story about football. Well, maybe it is. OK, it’s about Colt Brennan. That’s C-O-L-T, as in H-E-R-O. One day I saw him in person, not just on the evening news. He was standing next to me, two feet away. We were alone in the post of­fice: just Colt, me and the postal workers behind the counters. I was madly scribbling an address on an envelope when I looked up and saw the tall, lean figure with the fashionable stubble and the loose T-shirt and jeans, minding his own business, waiting for something—an arm’s length from me.

My gasp was loud enough to ricochet off the Formica counters and bounce around the room. “You’re . . . the . . . hero!” I blubbered inanely. “Thank you! Never in my life have I ever read the sports pages, until now. And it’s because of you!” He gave a shy, slightly bewildered grin.

Then, because it was my turn at the counter, I was forced to pull away from my Colt encounter and do something silly, like mail a letter and buy stamps. For those of you who are sports virgins like me, let me tell you that Colt Brennan is the University of Hawai‘i Warriors’ quarterback who all Hawai‘i loves. By the time you read this, he may have won the most prestigious individual award in college football, the Heisman Trophy. Or not. Regardless, his star in Hawai‘i will never fade, because the Colt Brennan story is more about character and inner qual­ities than about awards and cheering fans.

Before I read Pete Thalmel’s story on Brennan in The New York Times last August, I had never opened a newspaper sports section. I had never read Sports Illustrated. So deep was my sporting ignorance that when someone mentioned the World Series, I would ask whether it was about basketball, football or baseball. I thought a “down” was a mood and a pigskin came from a lū‘au. But something clicked when I read that Brennan studied Samoan to fit in with some of his teammates, that he buys pizza for the players, and speaks regularly at schools and detention centers. When I learned from the article about Brennan’s brush with the law in Colorado and his exquisite blaze of redemption, I was even more impressed—not just with his athletic prowess, but with his character, his mettle. That is how I read Thamel’s words when he wrote, “And he is the best player the university has ever had.”

In the world of sports, excellence is normally measured more by winning than by inner qualities. Stars like Colt Bren­nan redefine and recalibrate the yardstick. And he is not alone. In another New York Times article by Thamel, published November 19, 2007, Dan Mullen describes Florida quarterback Tim Tebow: “An hour before the game on Saturday, he’s sitting at his locker with a kid from the Make-A-Wish Foun­dation. That’s the kind of kid he is.”

Hawai‘i is a big sports state, and we love to win. Now an avid reader of the sporting press, I can say that some of our best writers are sports writers who turn out searing, moving prose on aspects of our collective character that are otherwise elusive. On-field brawls and unsportsmanlike behavior bring shame on us as a state, just as exemplary character makes us proud. I recall reading the front page of the local morning paper one day in 2005, when the baseball team from O‘ahu’s ‘Ewa Beach won the Little League World Series. The players’ families had to scrape up the funds to fly to the Mainland for the game.

One parent was supported by friends and neighbors, who donated the funds for his trip. When the kids re­turned to Honolulu, their beaming faces filled our screens and hearts. They made us proud. They gave us a sense of community, just as Colt Brennan has united us as Islanders—sports virgins and all.

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