There was a time when Rich Miano couldn’t wait to put plenty of distance between himself and Kaiser High School.

Rich Miano:
Returning to his
alma mater to coach

How much?

"Six thousand miles," Miano said.

Dragged to Hawaii from Brockton, Mass., pouting and defiant, if not exactly kicking and screaming, by a family move with seven weeks left in his sophomore year, Miano said he wanted little to do with the place.

He wanted even less when, after being given a tour of the campus, he was told about the institution known as "kill-a-haole day."

" ‘What’s a haole?’ " Miano said he inquired.

" ‘You,’ " he said his guide told him.

"Needless to say I didn’t go to school that day," Miano said. Nor did he want to return for his junior year, much less stick around long enough to graduate.

"I was the most miserable person on this planet," Miano recalls.

But here we are 34 years later and Miano, who was announced Friday as the Cougars’ new head football coach, can’t shake the place.

Fact is he hasn’t wanted to. For nearly 20 years he has lived, by his wishes, a 5-minute stroll from the Kaiser campus.

BY THE TIME he graduated from Kaiser in 1980, Miano said he told himself, " ‘If I ever make enough money, I’m going to get myself a home right here’ " in the shadow of Koko Head.

When 11 years of NFL paychecks started coming in, Miano did just that. Occasionally he can be seen running the Kaiser track or tak•ing his son, Kalanikupa’a, there to shoot hoops.

Imagine the stories he has told his son about the direction his life took there. Miano had played football back in Brockton, but as a form of rebellion he stubbornly refused his family’s urgings to take it up at Kaiser. Instead, he joined the swimming and diving team and likely would have remained there if not for the chance meeting and continued urgings of then-football coach Ron Lee.

Lee had noted Miano’s athleticism on the diving board and kept after Miano to come out for the football team until he finally acquiesced.

That move and Miano’s diesel-drive determination to make something of himself at Kaiser paid off for both of them, helping the Cougars to the 1979 Prep Bowl title.

WHEN MIANO graduated from Kaiser, he was offered a scholarship to Willamette and had only tepid interest from the University of Hawaii. But "he wouldn’t leave Hawaii," said Lee, who had arranged the scholarship offer. "He’d become an island boy."

So, Miano walked on at UH and, through further dint of hard work and perseverance became a two-time All-Western Athletic Conference defensive back.

This January, when the UH coaching staff was shaken up and he was left without a place on the staff for the first time in 13 years, Miano had chances to pursue jobs on the mainland. Again, he chose to stay put and follow his heart.

"Kaiser is lucky to have him," said Lee, who now coaches at OIA rival Kalani. "We need guys like him (in high school coaching). Guys who are dedicated, spend their time with the kids and set an example."

Guys who you now can’t drag away from their alma maters.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.