Tyger Taam always had a dream.

He said so when he was barely out of diapers. Watching older brother Boltyn at wrestling, judo and jiu jitsu practices fueled little Tyger.

“I want to be champamin,” he told Andy and Heidi Taam.

Andy Taam wasn’t certain what a “champamin” was.

“He would always say that. Me and mama would say, ‘What?’ ”

Boltyn Taam went on to compete in two HHSAA state championship wrestling matches for Moanalua, winning one state title.

Four years younger, Tyger became a champion, or champamin, as a freshman in 2022 in the 132-pound weight class. He moved up to 138 as a sophomore and won gold again. Last year, he repeated as the 138 state champion. He is in position to do the ultimate rarity in Hawaii high school wrestling, complete a grand slam — and in some of the most competitive divisions in boys wrestling. In 84 matches, he has 84 wins.

Moanalua has transformed over the past decade under a devoted coaching staff led by Lucas Misaki. Na Menehune won the boys state title in 2022, and has captured six of the past nine OIA championships.

“What makes Tyger special is that he’s ultra competitive in the room and just one of the boys outside of it,” Misaki said. “That gives the rest of the guys a clue on how to carry themselves.”

Before Taam’s dream of becoming a champion manifested, there was another dream. Heidi Taam rarely speaks about it.

“I don’t really talk to people about it too much,” she said. “I think they would think I’m crazy.”

At the time, she was carrying Tyger, close to full term. One night while in deep sleep, she defied the laws of physics. It was otherworldly.

“I walked way up to the top of the stairs at a temple. I floated up and a priest was in the rafters,” she recalled. “He had that comic face like a mask and there was a noose around his neck. I said, ‘Why am I having this dream?’ ”

It was a hyottoko mask, representing a comical Japanese character. There was, however, nothing that felt funny in Heidi’s bones. She woke up puzzled, spooked. She said nothing, even to Andy.

“I didn’t want to scare him,” Heidi said.

Andy went to work and Heidi drove to her appointment with her doctor. Her intuition was strong.

“Tyger was floating around inside. I could feel him kicking. That dream was strange. I never had that kind of dream,” she said. “It’s a mother’s instinct, you know.”

She asked about inducing labor for Tyger.

“They said to wait,” she said. “In my mind, I said this can’t wait. And I wanted to do it naturally.”

She contacted a friend who is an acupuncturist and got treated. That night, Andy drove Heidi to the hospital. Everything was quite normal until they got situated.

“Tyger’s heart rate was starting to drop. They knew something was off,” she said.

Tyger left the womb and the medical staff immediately went into hyperdrive.

“I saw him being flipped around, legs flying around. They didn’t want to say anything. That’s not normal,” she said. “They didn’t want to scare me.”

The doctor unraveled the umbilical cord that had wrapped around Tyger’s tiny neck.

“He said, if you had waited, it wouldn’t have been good,” Heidi said.

Mom and dad never talked about the emergency situation with their growing children for years.

“I told Tyger when he was probably 10 or 11. I don’t know if he understood,” Heidi said.

In fact, it was a long time before she told Andy about the fantastical dream.

“I didn’t tell him for months about my dream or the acupuncture,” she said. “When I finally told him, he looked at me kind of like disbelief. He knows acupuncture is so powerful, so that’s good.”

Tyger remembers being 10 when his mother told him about his birth. Her dream, however, was a mystery until it was read out loud to him during an interview on Sunday.

“I remember her telling me about my umbilical cord being wrapped around me in a bad way. That’s all I remember,” he said. “The dream, that’s crazy, someone speaking to her, giving her a sign. Thank God she had that dream or I might not have been here.”

Neither Heidi nor anyone else in the family has had a similar dream or revisitation since. Not that they expect or want one. Even Boltyn knows nothing about his mom’s premonition that day.

“I have no idea about it,” said Boltyn, now a senior wrestler at San Francisco State. “I’ve got to talk to her about it.”

Tyger Kamakura Taam was named in part after a close family friend, the late lifeguard and surfer Tiger Espere.

“He was a renaissance man. A paniolo, surfer, songwriter, poet,” Heidi Taam said.

Espere helped build the Hokule‘a in 1975 and the Makali‘i in 1995. Later, he was in Kamakura, Japan, to build a canoe, and named it after the city.

“He said, ‘I might not see it completed in my lifetime,’ I said, you can do it,” Heidi Taam recalled.

Espere died in 2005. A year later, Tyger was born.

“I just feel Tiger Espere sent the dream to me so I wouldn’t be scared,” Heidi said.

Tyger was just starting to walk when the family was at Tenri Judo Club.

“Before he could talk, he would point to the pull-up bar,” Heidi Taam recalled. “He saw other kids doing it. Andy would put him up there.”

A few years later, they began to travel extensively for national wrestling tournaments. Andy Taam became friends with Kamuela Woode. When Woode began training his son, Analu, the Taams brought their sons. Soon, Hunter Berger and Logan Lau joined the crew, forming the original core of the Silverbacks Wrestling Club.

To make four to five trips to the continent annually, there were sacrifices to be made. Heidi Taam became a flight attendant in part to help her family better afford flying.

Woode and his small club lived up to the highest of standards. His honesty could be brutal at times, but it was authentic. There was some give and take.

“We were Silverbacks, but my son said, ‘I like gold, not silver.’ They all watched Jordan Burroughs, the greatest American wrestler. He has one Olympic gold medal and six world titles. His thing was, ‘All I see is gold.’ So we became the Goldenbacks.”

Along the way, Woode had a basic question for Tyger.

“I asked him what his goals are. He was kind of timid. Then one day when he was in sixth or seventh grade, he told me he wanted to win four (state titles),” Woode said.

The next few years were filled with relentless traveling to meet the nation’s best.

“When we started traveling, there were a lot of 0-and-2s,” Andy Taam said. “We had to source out the best kids nationally and take our lumps. If we go to local tournaments and we’re placing or winning all the time, you don’t know how good you are. The best are in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, everywhere. A lot of times we ended up getting our okole kicked, going two and out, but it didn’t stop Tyger.”

Their accommodations were spartan. Sometimes, the ceiling fan would barely work. The memories, however, are golden.

“We had a lot of fun turning it into family trips,” Andy Taam said. “Going to to Six Flags or going to the mountains.”

The year 2022 was a pivotal point.

“I really saw the improvement of Tyger after his eighth grade year at the Super 32 in South Carolina,” Boltyn Taam said. “He won five matches in a row against really good competition, and at that point, I realized that he improved his wrestling so much from his club team. Ever since, I saw a completely different wrestler. He came back to the island with more confidence in his game.”

Tyger has returned to Super 32 every year, facing the best varsity wrestlers as a freshman, when he went 0-2, then 1-2 as a sophomore and 1-2 as a junior.

“In October, I went 4-2, which is pretty good,” Taam said. “To get that far is a really big jump for me and boosted my confidence a lot.”

Tyger Taam had enough swag to chase the life-long dream, but four state titles is the realm of greats like Josh Terao of Mid-Pacific. Hallowed ground, the dream of many who were talented enough but suffered untimely injuries, or a tough break on the mat. Tyger is close. So is Berger, who won state titles as a freshman and sophomore at Saint Louis. As a junior (132), he is recovering from injury. Analu Woode is off to a strong start at Nanakuli, unbeaten so far as a freshman at 113.

The pressure in what is arguably the toughest sport in high school is almost unimaginable. Tyger Taam was 17-0 as a freshman, 28-0 as a sophomore and 24-0 as a junior. He is 15-0 so far as a senior.

“There was a one guy my freshman year from Waianae. I used to go against him when I was a kid, when I was around 10, in PAL tournaments. I’d go against him a lot, losing to him a lot. I didn’t face him for a while after that, just working hard every day in the room,” he said. “Then I went against him freshman year, state finals.”

That guy was Bransen Porter, a sophomore at the time. Taam won by fall (0:48) in the 132 weight class title match.

In 2023, he met another Searider, Hakuilua Paaluhi, and edged him 4-3 in the 138 final.

“I had to go against him in OIAs and states. It was a really close match,” Taam said. “He was my rival. He’s at college now, wrestling.”

Last season, Taam met Mililani’s Koen Shigemoto in the 138 final and won by fall (0:56).

The odds of winning a grand slam are microscopic, but going unbeaten is the grain of sand on a big beach metaphor times 1,000. Taam knows the bull’s-eye target is on his back, but nothing fazes him. He had to earn every inch of his road to success. There are countless supporters who have his back, but he is aware of a few who have their doubts.

“It’s my life and I have the goals that I want to accomplish. They can think whatever they want, but they haven’t done what I’ve done. They’re sitting on a couch and giving their opinions. They haven’t experienced all the trips and all the losses,” he said.

He will wrestle at Menlo (Calif.) next season and major in business administration.

“I want to meet new people, have new experiences. It’ll be a new beginning,” Taam said. “It’ll be the first time I’ll be away from my parents, a totally different state, away from all my friends. I’m thankful to all the people who have been there for me, especially my family, all the love and support they’ve given me. My grandparents are always at my tournaments. They always make me Spam musubi.”

Tyger Taam

Moanalua wrestling • Weight class: 144 pounds • 5 feet 6 • Senior

Career: 84-0, three-time HHSAA champion (2022: 17-0; 2023: 28-0; 2024: 24-0; 2025: 15-0)

Top 3 movies

1. “The Batman” (2022)

2. “Hunter x Hunter”

3. “Interstellar”

“‘Batman’ had the Catwoman, The Riddler. That was a dang good movie.”

Top 3 food/drinks

1. Smoked salmon bagel with cream cheese and capers

2. Water

3. Clams

“I was at a coffee shop in San Francisco and we got the smoked salmon bagel.”

Homemade food

1. Yogurt bowl. Greek yogurt, protein powder, berries, banana, honey, cacao nips, coconut flakes and bee pollen.

2. Burrito bowl. Rice, ground beef, lettuce, salsa, mayo.

3. Steak, rice and asparagus.

“I try my best to eat real foods. It’s all really easy to make and beneficial.”

Top 3 artists/songs:

1. Lil Yachty — “The BLACK seminole”

2. MF Doom – “Can I Watch?”

3. Black Star – “Astronomy (8th light)”

Favorite athlete: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

“He’s just really good at what he does. Everything. Hard to defend.”

Funniest teammate: Jayden Seson.

“He’s an old teammate at Moanalua. He graduated. It’s hard to explain. It’s just him. He’s so funny to be around.”

Smartest teammate: Yuto Wang.

“He takes a lot of more difficult classes.”

GPA:3.738

“I’m pretty happy with it.”

Favorite teacher/class:Mr. Reyn Okamura, Expository Writing I

“This was junior year. At first he didn’t strike me as a normal type teacher. He was different. One time, he brought in “Street Fighter.” He turned it into a lesson somehow. He’s one of the smartest people I met. He always gives me new perspectives to write from.”

Favorite motto:Your greatest opponent is yourself.

Hidden talent:Juggling

New life skill:Time management, cooking

“I’m usually not late, I plan ahead of time, prepared for events.”

Bucket list:Go to Japan (October/fall season); travel the world; go to college; compete in collegiate wrestling; meet new people; go camping; live in Hawaii.

“I went to Japan with my family when I was a kid. We also went there for judo (club). We got to explore all over Japan.”

Time Machine: “I would travel back to the Cleveland vs. Golden State 2016 NBA Finals. It was a different vibe to the game. Now everyone’s nice to each other. Back then, every bucket mattered.”

Youth sports: Baseball, flag football, judo, jiu jitsu, wrestling

Back in time: “I would tell my younger self to buy as much bitcoin as I could’ve. I would’ve told my dad to buy as much as he can.”

Shoutouts: Family, Coach Kamu Woode, old wrestling coaches, judo and jiu jitsu senseis, uncle Scott Suzui, Kimo Luna, Kekoa Young, Moanalua High School and wrestling team, my friends and girlfriend.