His first visit to Aloha Stadium was as a Santa Clara tight end in 1975, a few weeks after the facility opened.

"Kaipo Spencer was our quarterback," Doug Cosbie recalled. Hawaii beat the Broncos in a 48-40 shootout.

Now Cosbie hopes to coach the Kamehameha Warriors to the state championship there this fall.

He said he’s been back to the islands "about 40 times" since his third and final Pro Bowl appearance in 1985.

A lot of it was business, with the O’Neill surf and snow brand, of which he is a part-owner, along with Kurt Rambis and two other Santa Clara friends.

Recently to visit his son. A second grandchild is scheduled to be born here soon.

It seems the retired Dallas Cowboys star was destined to end up living in Hawaii.

But as coach of a high school team?

It’s not just any team, in Cosbie’s estimation. He’s intrigued by Kamehameha’s role of educating native Hawaiians.

"I told the people at the school I didn’t mean it as a knock to any of the other schools, but if it wasn’t Kamehameha I don’t think I would’ve applied," he said.

"Knowing the school and the mission I really felt it would be a good fit. I’m a big believer in changing things through education and knowledge."

It also factored in that he was approached by former players, whom he’d coached in college after they graduated from Kamehameha. Drake Parker played offensive line at Cal when Cosbie was the Bears’ offensive coordinator.

"He’s got this calm and confident presence," Parker said. "When he came to Cal everybody knew about him, and when he spoke whatever he spoke of, he knew what he was talking about. And he knew how to talk to players on a players’ level. Sometimes coaches are too authoritarian, sometimes too friendly. He had the right balance."

He has also coached pro football, but Cosbie said he prefers the high school level.

"You can have more of an influence," he said.

Semi-pro in Italy was the most fun, he said.

"Their culture is very similar to Hawaii. Family is very big. They told me, ‘In America you live to work. In Italy we work to live.’ I think it’s a healthy balance. Family and community are more important than career."

Cosbie might have ended up here in the late 1990s. He’d worked with Fred vonAppen at Stanford. Fortunately for Cosbie, "the timing wasn’t right," and he didn’t end up a member of the staff that went 0-12 in 1998.

"The timing is good now because me and (his wife, Sherry) have five kids, but the youngest one is out of the house now, a sophomore at UCLA," Cosbie said.

As for X’s and O’s, his influences include Bill Walsh, Tom Landry and Monte Clark. So expect a little bit of everything, with maybe a double-dose of Walsh.

"I hesitate to call it the West Coast Offense, because Bill didn’t call it that," he said. "It will be a blend."

He knows the competition in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu is intense. He knows the Warriors are behind, as former head coach David Stant resigned in February.

"We’ve got a lot of ground to make up," Doug Cosbie said.

At least he knows the lay of the land better than most newcomers.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783 or on Twitter as @dave_reardon.