Each year, 12 superstar high school athletes are inducted into the Hawaii High School Athletic Association’s Hall of Honor, and there are 15 recipients of Kaimana Awards from HMSA for well-roundedness as student-athletes and community members. This year the total is 32, as HMSA made it 20-for-20, in the 20th year of the program’s existence.
It has been 43 years since the Hall of Honor was started, going back to 1983. For those of us who can remember that far back — when Nissan was its title sponsor — it seems crazy that those first honorees are now in their 60s.
Clyde Mizumoto, a longtime sportswriter and editor at the Honolulu Advertiser, has served on the Hall of Honor selection committee from the beginning, and has chaired it the past few decades.
Mizumoto remembers the first committee was chaired by Jim Hackleman, who asked Mizumoto to take over when he moved to California. Hackleman picked the right guy; those of us with the fortune to have worked with or for Clyde over the years will all tell you he is fair and open-minded.
“For sure, those are the words I would use,” said Wes Nakama, a longtime Hall of Honor selection committee member who covered high school sports at the Advertiser for many years.
Although it meets on Zoom more now, the selection committee still busts its butt in marathon meetings to choose each class. In that sense, those of us who pick the Kaimana Award winners have it easier; HMSA employees diligently screen hundreds of applications to get it down to a manageable number, and we can do the final voting in one two-hour meeting.
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Still, it is nearly impossible to choose between the last winner and the bubble boy or girl. What’s the tiebreaker when you’ve got two students with better-than-perfect GPAs who both maxed the SAT and both promise to return home to practice medicine after college?
I’m sure it is as agonizing if not more so for the Hall of Honor selectors.
I have not heard of most of the Kaimana Award candidates before reviewing their application materials. There is no on-field stardom requirement, and many toil in lower-profile sports. Many have daunting responsibilities at home, work long hours at jobs, and a few each year have even started their own companies.
I did know of one of this year’s winners, Austen Kinney, because when healthy she was a stellar slugger for Punahou’s powerful softball team.
When not busy studying to make the President’s List, Kinney founded an organization that supports teens who need menstrual products, and helped get a law passed to make the products free in schools statewide. Not surprisingly, Kinney aspires to a career in public health policy.
Many of us knew who HHSAA Hall of Honor inductee Titan Lacadan was when he was 11. Years before he scored a high school touchdown, he made national news when University of Hawaii football coach Nick Rolovich offered the pre-teen a scholarship in 2017.
“Every Tom, Dick and Harry wanted to interview him,” said Frank, Titan’s dad. “The hardest thing was seeing all the negative comments (on social media).”
One thing many did not know was that Rolovich had recruited Titan’s older brother, Jake, to play at Nevada when Rolovich coached there, so there was already a relationship with the family.
There still is.
“(Rolovich) stays in touch, sends congratulations, small kine things like that,” Titan said. “But, yes, I committed to the school (UH).”
The offer and commitment was not binding, but the way things worked out Titan Lacaden will play at UH for another Saint Louis School graduate, coach Timmy Chang.
Many people also did not know Titan is much more interested in the aina than social media. He is an influencer on his late grandfather’s farm much more than on the internet, except for a few posts as a Monster energy drink ambassador.
“Basically, it was keep pushing and grinding like he never got (the scholarship offer),” Frank Lacaden said. “What it did was make Titan want UH more. I asked him once where he plans to live, and he said here, and he agreed that it made sense for him to stay here and play. People throw around all that NIL, we’re not looking into that. We’re old school and want to do things here in Hawaii.”
Another 2025 Hall of Honor inductee with a dad named Frank also has a unique back story.
Radford’s Saxoni Frank, adopted son of noted cheer coach Bo Frank, was born in Guatemala. Star-Advertiser prep sports writer Paul Honda wrote a great story about Saxoni’s remarkable journey (next stop: Purdue), and his supreme talent and skill in a sport that rarely gets its due.
“He’s basically the Barry Sanders of cheer, nationally,” Honda said. “He’s not the tallest guy, but when he’s in the air, it’s so explosive … and the body control, and it’s all in sync with his teammates.”
It’s hard to imagine a cheer athlete being considered for such an honor back in 1983 — especially since it wasn’t a state-sanctioned sport until more than a decade later.
“We’re extremely grateful for all the sponsors the hall has had over the years, starting with Nissan, then HHSAA and the Honolulu Advertiser, then the Star-Advertiser and Enterprise,” Mizumoto said. “It’s remarkable that the program has endured for 43 years.”