At first, it was surprising to read of Sterling Carvalho’s separation from football coaching duties at Kahuku.
What did he do? Or, what did he not do?
And why won’t anyone in authority, like Kahuku principal Donna Lindsey, provide any explanation?
While sitting at a crowded lunch counter Thursday, I overheard strangers imagining and discussing the worst. That is not good for anyone and is inevitably what happens when people in high-profile positions are removed from them without a stated reason.
But then I remembered a similar situation also involving a good coach with a reputation as a good human being, too.
We’ve been down this road before at Kahuku (and, in fairness, also at other schools):
Coach wins multiple state championships. Everybody loves coach, or so it seems.
Coach then does not win championship. Coach is removed as coach, and no one will say why.
Reggie Torres lost his job as Kahuku football coach back in 2014. His crime was a 6-5 record one year after back-to-back state championships, two of the three in Torres’ eight years as varsity head coach.
Carvalho’s Kahuku teams won three state crowns in a row before losing in the championship final last fall to its chief rival of the past 40 years in such games, Saint Louis.
Now, nearly a week after the parents of football players were notified that Carvalho is no longer the coach, there is still no official reason coming from anyone in authority.
We were told by Lindsey to contact the DOE communications branch with questions. I placed a call there on Wednesday and did not hold my breath. It’s Friday night now and it has not been returned. Maybe the branch fell off of the tree.
My call was to try to verify that Carvalho is still employed as a teacher at Kahuku. There is no mention of him losing his teaching position in Lindsey’s five-sentence letter to the parents.
It is easy to believe Carvalho’s twin brother and special teams coach Stewart when he said the removal of Sterling as the coach is not because of anything “illegal or criminal or anything he did that warranted the dismissal.”
There was a lack of transparency from the school’s administration 11 years ago, too. Worse yet, Torres said he wasn’t told why he would no longer be the coach. He was, however, allowed to remain as an employee on campus.
There is another common denominator that appears to be the crux of the issue, again: complaints from parents, specifically about playing time.
Stewart Carvalho alluded to this in an interview with Paul Honda of the Star-Advertiser on Wednesday.
“What he won’t do is give in to parents complaining about the way coaches coach,” Stewart Carvalho said of Sterling, who has, so far, opted not to speak to reporters. “He will support his (assistant) coaches 100%.”
Kahuku took quarterback controversy to a new level last fall when the Red Raiders installed a midseason transfer from another national powerhouse for the last five games of the season.
Matai Fuiava said his family came to Hawaii because his father got a job here. The timing allowed the starter at Bellflower, Calif., juggernaut St. John Bosco (which Kahuku lost to in 2022 and beat in 2023) to play in the last five games of the season for Kahuku. Fuiava was getting a lot of competition for his starting role at his previous school. So, depending on your world view, it’s quite a fortunate coincidence for him and Kahuku or fertile ground for a conspiracy theory.
That all makes me wonder if Carvalho might still be the Kahuku coach today if it won the state championship game instead of losing it 17-10 with the new kid in town at QB.
