Before Jesse Sapolu there was Charlie Ane. Before Charlie Ane there was Al Lolotai.
The only one who University of Hawaii linebacker Lance Williams had heard of before Tuesday is Sapolu. Can’t blame him, Williams is a 20-year-old sophomore and there’s no way he could have seen any of them play football.
And that’s one reason why Williams, who is of Samoan ancestry, looks forward to the establishment of the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame. It will help connect today’s players to those who blazed the trail.
“There’s a lot of great Polynesian players. You look up to them because they were born and raised the same way I was,” said Williams, the nephew of former UH linebacker Manly Williams.
After Rainbow Warriors practice Tuesday, I asked representatives of three generations who they think should be enshrined in this hall’s first class when it opens in January in Hawaii in conjunction with the Pro Bowl. As you might guess, many of the responses correlate to the ages of those questioned.
“I would say Al Noga. Uncle Al, he always comes and supports us. He lifts with us in the weightroom.
He’s one of the fierce legends I know of and look up to,” Williams said, touting his fellow Farrington alumnus who remains UH’s only first-team Associated Press All-American.
Williams also mentioned Junior Seau and Pisa Tinoisamoa.
Chris Naeole will probably be inducted eventually. I asked the 38-year-old, 11-year NFL vet and first-year UH offensive line coach who he thinks should go in right away.
“Lot of guys came before me. Jesse (Sapolu), Maa (Tanuvasa), Olin (Kreutz),” Naeole said. “If you look at the mainland definitely Junior Seau, Kevin Mawae. There’s a whole list you can go down, and if you look at the history there were guys way back.”
Who most inspired him?
“I think for me it was Jesse Sapolu because I was a big 49ers fan. And Mark (Tuinei). In the ’80s it was the Cowboys and the 49ers running the show in the NFL,” Naeole said. “Those were the two biggest guys of my era who we looked up to.”
Norm Chow said it’s hard to choose from among the most historically important Polynesian players.
“I think the problem with those things is it depends on how far back you can go in history,” said Chow, the 67-year-old part-Hawaiian UH head coach. “Jimmy Clark, Charlie Ane, Herman Wedemeyer … these young kids don’t know who they are.”
Chow said if he had to pick one it would be Ane, who was a Pro Bowl center in the 1950s and later mentored him as the offensive line coach at Punahou.
“He’s a hero of mine. I hated playing for him until I realized he was just trying to make us better. He pushed us and pushed us and pushed us.”
Then there’s Lolotai, the Kahuku and ‘Iolani star who is the first Polynesian on record to play in the NFL, in 1945 with the Redskins. And Tommy Kaulukukui, the transcendent UH star of the 1930s, famous for his 103-yard kickoff return at UCLA.
The selection committee has plenty of deserving candidates from which to choose for its first class … and many editions to come.
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Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783 or on Twitter as @dave_reardon
