When Chad Haaheo Rowan left Waimanalo as a raw 19-year-old to enter the world of sumo in 1988, his stablemaster Jesse Kuhaulua sought a ring name that would match high hopes and inspire greatness.

That name would become Akebono — Japanese for “dawn” or “daybreak” — truly prophetic, as it turned out, for the giant of a man who would usher in a new era in Japan’s centuries-old national sport as its first foreign-born yokozuna or grand champion.

Rowan, who touched two countries and millions of fans in a 13-plus-year career that saw him 11 times win the Emperor’s Cup — emblematic of a tournament championship — died in Tokyo, it was announced on Wednesday.

The 54-year-old Kaiser High School graduate, a former basketball player and wrestler, had suffered from heart problems, including an acute heart failure in 2017 that had severely hampered his mobility and resulted in an extended stay in a Tokyo rehabilitation facility.

>> PHOTOS: Looking back at the career of Akebono

“He left us way too young, too soon,” said the Maui-born Kuhaulua, who recruited and coached him in sumo. In a phone interview, Kuhaulua said, “He was an amazing athlete and worked hard to get to the top.”

Only 73 men have ascended to sumo’s most exalted rank and Rowan initially seemed a longshot to ever be one of them. While his 6-foot, 8-inch height and 280-pound girth helped earn him a place at Hawaii Pacific University for basketball, some sumo purists had, upon initial inspection, written him off as a prospect for success in sumo, where, like football, the ability to get low and apply leverage is important.

“He had a lot of athleticism and surprising agility,” Kuhaulua remembered. “It seemed like whatever sport he tried he could be good at. In the sumo stable we sometimes had baseball and other games just for fun, and he was even good at those too.”

Curiously Rowan was “discovered” at a family funeral by Larry Aweau, one of Kuhaulua’s relatives. At first Aweau said he was intrigued by the prospects of Rowan’s younger brother, Ola, who was much shorter, but Chad, because of his age was more readily available for Kuhaulua, who had recently opened his own Azumazeki stable after retiring from the ring.

“He (Chad) was willing to come to Japan right away,” Kuhaulua said. “He knew the hardships (of sumo) but wanted to try.”

After sizing up Rowan in the ring, an adviser from Osaka suggested that the fledgling sumotori be given the name Akebono, celebrating both the hopes for the new stable and the potential of his young protege, Kuhaulua said.

The sudden immersion into the hierarchical, almost feudal culture of sumo tested not only Rowan’s physical strength but his mental toughness.

In addition to grappling with a new language and culture and rigorous workouts that began in the early morning, there were taunts from higher-ranked sumotori and the endless chores dumped on low-ranking members of the stable, such as cleaning toilets, scrubbing backs and running errands.

At times, Rowan said, he would seek out a quiet place and play “Waimanalo Blues” on an ukulele.

But he persevered and quickly rose through the ranks and it was, of all people, two Japanese brothers, Koji and Masaru Hanada, born into sumo royalty, Takanohana and Wakanohana, who gave him added inspiration and steeled his purpose.

Their father, also Takanohana, was one of the sport’s most popular performers in his heyday and rival for Kuhaulua, who competed as Takamiyama. Their uncle, also Wakanohana, was a yokozuna and a leading member of the Nihon Sumo Kyokai, the ruling body of the sport.

They entered sumo together in March of 1988 and soon became powerful rivals.

“When Chad began doing well against the brothers their father told me, ‘He (Akebono) is going to be a good one,’” Kuhaulua said.

“Their pictures were always in the newspapers and magazines,” Rowan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a 1990s interview. “Everywhere they went there were cameras.”

Rowan said, “I used to hang their pictures up where I slept and just stare at them every day.”

Their collision course in the late 1980s and early ’90s brought frequent comparisons in the media and prompted a nationally watched race to win championships and see who would be first to reach yokozuna.

It was, in some minds, the ultimate rivalry, sumo blue bloods vs. the giant foreigner; the purity of the “kokutai” — or national essence — against foreign influence.

It was a race played against the background of the Sumo Association’s controversial refusal to grant the title of yokozuna to Nanakuli’s Salevaa Atisanoe, who competed as Konishiki, and the steady rise of Waianae’s Fiamalu Penitani, who competed as Musashimaru.

The Rowan-Hanada bouts helped sell out arenas six times a year across Japan for 666 consecutive tournament nights between November 1989 and May 1997.

Propelled by winning records in his first 18 tournaments, Akebono reached ozeki, sumo’s second-highest rank, in a record 26 tournaments. And then he beat Takanohana in their January 1993 showdown, with 62% of Japan’s TV audience watching, to earn promotion to yokozuna.

Takanohana and Wakanohana soon followed him to the rank.

Akebono’s installation as yokozuna took place at the sacred Shinto shrine, Meiji Jingu, amid a light dusting of snow that was shown on national TV and featured on huge video boards in major intersections across Tokyo.

At the 1998 Nagano Olympics, Rowan was chosen to represent Japan, of whom he had become a citizen, in the opening ceremonies performing the dohyo iri or ring-entering ceremony.

Rowan retired in 2001, his 520-pound body on hobbled knees and no longer up to the punishing demands of the sport after compiling a 566-198 record.

“My body doesn’t listen anymore,” an emotional 31-year-old Rowan said at his retirement news conference. His retirement ceremony drew a capacity crowd of 11,000 to the Ryogoku Kokugikan to see his topknot snipped off in ritual fashion.

Such is the honor of the rank of yokozuna that Rowan chose to retire when he felt he could no longer uphold its sacred tradition. “He wanted to go out while he was still on top so people would remember him that way,” his wife, Christine, said.

Rowan spent time as a coach in the Azumazeki stable and was a member of the Sumo Kyokai until retiring from the ruling body in 2003.

He went into various forms of pro wrestling and martial arts before a heart condition felled him in the southern Japanese city of Kitakyushu in 2017.

He had said he wasn’t feeling well prior to going on a pro wrestling tour and while there experienced an irregular heartbeat.

After taking himself to a hospital, he suffered what a family member said was acute heart failure and was placed in a medically induced coma for about two weeks.

After regaining consciousness, he was transported to Tokyo where he was hospitalized for about five months before being transferred to a rehabilitation facility where he worked to regain mobility.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanual paid tribute to Rowan in a statement saying, “I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Akebono, a giant in the world of sumo, a proud Hawaiian and a bridge between the United States and Japan. …

“Throughout his 35 years in Japan, Akebono strengthened the cultural ties between the United States and his adopted homeland by uniting us all through sport. I send my sincerest condolences to his family and friends and to sumo fans everywhere.”

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green also offered his condolences and praised Rowan.

“Jaime and I share our community’s sadness over the passing of Waimanalo’s Chad Rowan,” Green said in a statement. “He gained fame as Akebono, the first non-Japanese-born sumotori to achieve the ancient sport’s top rank of Yokozuna, and by his example, he also inspired untold numbers of our youth that with determination and hard work, attaining your dreams is possible.

“A champion in both the land of his birth and his adopted island home, he served as an ambassador for Hawai‘i in Japan and his legacy will live on.”

Toshiharu Kyosu, a prominent Tokyo journalist and sumo historian said, “To me he had an exceptional career. What he did was truly a remarkable feat. A big man with big spirit.”

Rowan was fond of saying, “I never thought of myself as a star. I’ve just been fortunate. Somebody above the clouds was with me.”