You don’t have to believe me. You don’t have to believe Omega Hogan, Kurt Milne, Jason Whieldon, Gary Wright or anybody else, either.

You can look it up.

Hawaii really did beat Alabama. It happened on Nov. 29, 2003, and the score was 37-29. While none of the players named above would be considered stars for most of their careers as UH football players, they certainly were on that muggy, overcast day in Halawa.

Whieldon, for example, was a reserve quarterback who usually didn’t play much because he was stuck behind Timmy Chang. In this game, he relieved Chang twice and passed for four touchdowns and ran for another.

Granted, this was Crimson Tide post-Bear Bryant and pre-Nick Saban, and they were on NCAA probation. But it was still Alabama. And the fact remains: Hawaii beat Alabama in a football game.

“They were still very talented, lots of future NFL players,” Hogan recalls.

And even though they were finishing a 4-9 season with a game against a Hawaii team that would end up 9-5, the Tide rolled into Aloha Stadium as 3-point favorites and with an air of superiority.

“We’d seen on tape that in SEC games they’d double-team the (punt coverage) gunners,” Hogan said. “But they only put one blocker on us.”

That was a mistake. Hogan and Wright beat their blockers every time. Their ability to down Milne’s punts and contain dangerous Tide punt returner Brandon Brooks was crucial in one of the few UH games of the run-and-shoot era where field position mattered much.

Alabama scored zero points on the four possessions it started behind its 10-yard line following Hawaii punts. “Omega and G. Wright, they are the men. I can always count on them, they’re fantastic,” Milne said after the game.

Hogan came to Hawaii from Houston, where he was an option quarterback at Aldine High School. When he arrived at UH in 2001, he was moved to defensive back and played on the scout team against the starting quarterback, Nick Rolovich.

“We’d always heckle him whenever he threw incompletions,” Hogan remembers.

Hogan also simulated the Warriors’ opposing quarterback in practices leading up to games against teams that ran the option, like Rice or the military academies.

His role as a valuable special teams player expanded each season. But Hogan ached for a starting role on defense that never materialized. As painful as that was, he learned something that would also be of great value in his career.

“Being part of something bigger than yourself,” is how he describes it now.

Today, Hogan is assigned to the 2-6 Cavalry Squadron of the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade at Wheeler Army Airfield. He recently completed an Army leadership course and is up for promotion later this month to sergeant.

On the eve of Veterans Day and UH’s game against rival Fresno State, he will speak tonight to the current Rainbow Warriors, now coached by Rolovich.

“I’ll be focusing on resiliency,” Hogan says. “In a situation like this, it’s easy to get down on yourself and think the season is gone.”

UH is 3-6 after losing six of its last seven. In 2004, Hogan’s junior year, Hawaii was 4-5, including losses at Boise State and Fresno State by a combined 139-17.

But the Warriors bounced back. With Hogan among those blocking for Chad Owens on a single-season record five punt returns for touchdowns, UH finished 8-5.

After his five years at Manoa, Hogan returned to Houston, got married and got a job he liked as a machinist.

Then, in 2013, at age 30, he joined the Army, became a member of the elite 75th Ranger Regiment and saw combat in Afghanistan.

“My dream was always to join the military,” Hogan says. “I’d stayed in shape, so the (Army) recruiter said I was a good candidate for the Rangers. Airborne? I hadn’t thought about jumping out of airplanes.”

That was 25 jumps ago.

When he reported for basic training, the drill instructor had been stationed at Schofield Barracks when Hogan played at UH and knew who he was. “There was some leniency, but I was expected to repay it with leadership,” says Hogan, who was more than 10 years older than most of his fellow trainees.

Basic training was easier for him than football training, but day-to-day with the Rangers was something else altogether.

“Some people won’t believe it, but (in screening) we’d do things like 3,000 jumping jacks in a row, keep doing them until some guys gave up,” he said. “It was like, ‘You’re my buddy, but could you please stop so we can all stop?’”

During training and while on deployment, Hogan was glad he had taken now-retired Col. Trey Johnson’s military science class at UH.

“Everything Trey said came back to me,” he says.

Hogan is a fan of his hometown Houston Texans, and says he has “a hard time digesting” team owner Robert McNair referring to NFL players as “inmates.”

“I never was very political. I’m proud to serve in the military, and I’m proud to be African-American,” Hogan says. “I don’t feel like I have to be one or the other.

“If someone wants to kneel (during the national anthem), they have that right. We fight for that right,” he adds. “America isn’t perfect. I don’t think it ever will be perfect. … (McNair) put the players in a bad position.”

Hogan’s inspiration to serve in the military came from his brother, Robert, who recently retired from the Navy, and his grandfather Ezell Simmons. Simmons served in the Army during the Korean War.

“From the day I joined the Army, he’d call me every Veterans Day, and he’d tell me the same stories,” Hogan says of his grandfather, who died last year. “We had that bond.”

Hogan and his wife, Charissa, have a son, Collin, and daughter, Kennedy.

“My plan was always to bring my family to Hawaii, he says. “I had to, because of everywhere I’ve been, this is the place that emphasizes family, ‘ohana, most of all.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser. com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.