At Keaau High School, the athletic department’s history books aren’t as thick as they are at many state-wide schools. They’ve barely gathered notable content since the school fielded its first football team in 2001, achievements being restrained to an extent by the environment.
At Keaau High School, the athletic department’s history books aren’t as thick as they are at many state-wide schools. They’ve barely gathered notable content since the school fielded its first football team in 2001, achievements being restrained to an extent by the environment.
Typically, unemployment is high in the district, wages are low, meth labs were once operational, it seemed, all over, and Puna has the reputation of leading the state in food stamps per capita.
By all accounts it is improved by an order of magnitude in terms of cleaning out the dangerous drug labs, and the school itself is an example of a better future for Puna people.
“We need to build some pride there and we will,” said Damien Packer. “You really have to be focused, you really have to work at something to get out of (Puna), it’s a challenging place, but it makes it all the better when you succeed, then you can come back and help others.”
He knows all about the first part. Packer has succeeded beyond all reasonable expectations as a Division I safety for the University of Hawaii football team, having gained 25 pounds and a wealth of football knowledge as a 5-foot-11, 225-pound redshirt senior for the Rainbows. He isn’t following in the footsteps of any Keaau football player, he’s making the footprints himself.
Packer is as close as you can get for a post-grad football success at Keaau, and he plans to convert that image into tangible results at his former school. A double major in sociology and family resources, he will graduate next month and hopes to land a role as a teacher and coach at Keaau.
“The calvary is on the way,” he said last week in a telephone interview from Honolulu, “you can let them know that. I don’t want to jump the gun, but I’ve been talking to people and at some point, that’s my goal, to come back to Keaau, teach and coach.
“Tell Kealakehe we’re coming to get them,” he said, with a laugh, alluding to the Waveriders’ BIIF dominance while he was in high school.
Packer knows time will be required to make something new, to make something sustainable.
And he knows that, not just from being given a chance to turn out by a former UH coaching staff, but by a pervasive memory from five years ago when he lost his best friend, Maka Lum Ho, in a kayak casualty near Kapoho lighthouse.
“They were out fishing,” said Maka’s father Gregory Lum Ho, “and just playing around with the kayak when it happened.”
Damien recalls going to the Kapoho fishing spot they routinely visited, but others were there, so they went down the road a bit to swim and play around with the kayak while they waited for their spot to open again.
“It was not a bad place to be,” Damien said, “we were just having fun and then this rogue wave came in and everything changed.”
It pulled the kayak away with a violent undertow. A helicopter rescue team found Maka’s body an hour or so later.
His father was in Honolulu when he got the message. By the time he could get back the friends were gathered at the hospital Everyone was in tears, wishing they could do something.
“It just came out of me,” Gregory said, “it was nothing I knew I was going to say, but when I saw those kids and we all hugged a bit, I said, ‘We all feel bad, but it’s better to lose my son than to lose all four of you.’”
It became a moment that galvanized relationships, gave people hope.
Packer went to Manoa determined to work as hard as could and to wear the number 21, his friend’s old number. The Norm Chow coaching staff redshirted him a year, had him play some special teams, some wide receiver and some running back.
When Nick Rolovich was hired, he came in with a clear-eyed staff that knew exactly what they wanted to do with the players.
“It has been amazing,” Packer said. “I owe great gratitude to Coach Chow, I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t give me a chance but this season has been everything I hope for when I came here. I wanted to make the team and contribute, to bust my butt for Maka.”
And now, it’s down to the final days, one last road game, one last home game, these are the practices he will participate in for the last time, the meetings he will never again attend as a player.
They go to Fresno State this week, then it’s back home for a season-ender Nov. 26 against Massachusetts.
Senior Day, the last day as a collegiate football player.
“I’m trying my best not to think about it all ending,” he said, “but I know it’s there, I know it’s getting closer; actually, I think I can feel it getting closer.
“I came here to try to make this football team, to wear No. 21 for Maka, to make him proud, to honor him and now it is almost at the end, like you’re waking up from a dream.
“Except it’s not a dream,” Packer said, “it’s not a sad thing anymore, it’s an inspirational thing, a motivational thing. I work for his memory, to make him proud of my efforts.”
He may yet have a chance to do that at Keaau High School, where it all started, where they need that inspiration the most.