Wright on: Lorenzo creed — ohana comes first

3:54m p,You can hardly get through a day on the Big Island without mentioning, or overhearing someone else make an ohana reference. It’s who we are here, maybe the central core of the island culture.

The skeptic in a journalist sometimes wonders how often people truly live the meaning of ohana and how many reference the word because it’s convenient.

And then you run into someone whose entire family is a living description of what the word means and you feel a kind of warmth and understanding that washes away any doubt. It’s a beautiful thing any time, but especially this time of year when we all tend to consider of the meaning of our own family, what we take and what we give.

In the Honakaa home of Robin, who works construction and is an assistant basketball coach at the high school, and Momi Lorenzo, it’s all ohana and it is all athletics and that goes for everyone, their own kids and all the others, who also happen to be their own. This requires a bit of background information.

Momi worked in a cardiology office, but at some point, she realized her calling in life was connected to children and ohana. She had five kids, Jamaika the middle child, was always the most “outspoken,” according to her mom, the most “straight forward of all of them.” In Momi’s case, her own kids are central to her life, but they are also in some sense just a part of the ohana.

A friend had been in legal trouble while pregnant. Momi raised the child, she adopted kids in difficult circumstances, she went to class to become certified and then started bringing in foster children.

How many in all, Momi?

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “We have had 10 at a time with us, in all, the number is, I think 20, but I should say at least 20 in case I missed someone. I don’t really think about the numbers, to be honest.”

There are rules that apply to everyone in their big six-bedroom house, rules that create a kind of ohanaball, a term made up here that seems to apply.

Part of the deal is that everyone must play a sport. Pick a sport, any sport, though a lot of them, Jamaika included, seem to like volleyball and basketball.

Every coach who has had a kid in the Lorenzo family would probably want to have their belief in teamwork transferred to every player on the roster. All the kids had to play sports, but more significantly, everyone had a job at home.

“You have to work together,” Jamaika said, “it’s very much the teamwork you want in sports. If we were all going somewhere and someone didn’t get their job done, we all ha dot wait until it was done. Everyone working together, all the time, encouraging, it’s a good thing to learn.”

Jamaika is 26 and has another year of eligibility at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. She gained a two year degree from Sheridan College in Wyoming, but her focus at UHH is as a sociology major with an interest in restorative justice.

“The court system goes so far,” she said, “but what happens to the victims, what happens to the kids after the parents get in trouble? Where do their lives go? I want to help those kids, those people who have been victimized and are left to pickup the pieces by themselves.”

But it isn’t as though she just decided to go back to school after leaving Sheridan in 2010. Lorenzo works at Hilo Fish Co., which requires a variety of early wakeup calls, sometimes 4 a.m., sometimes 5 a.m., then it’s on to school, followed by basketball practice, back home and then she does it all over again.

“I didn’t know if i could still play at this level after basically six years out,” she said, “but I was going back to school, I had eligibility, I thought I should try.”

She phoned women’s basketball coach David Kaneshiro, hired in 2010 as a finalist with previous UHH coach Daphne Honma, Lorenzo’s high school coach and for three years, at a part time salary, Honma, back at Honakaa these days, was the Vulcans’ women’s coach. Former athletic director Dexter Irvin selected Kaneshiro, a men’s assistant at the time, over Honma. Kaneshiro had seen Lorenzo and encouraged her to try out.

“We are fortunate to have her,” Kaneshiro said. “First, she one of the best people you can ever meet, but she has a mature perspective about the game and what it takes that helps her leadership abilities.

“Playing two sports is a challenge,” he said. “I would not doubt her ability to do it, if that’s what she really wants to do.”

It’s a long road back, but Lorenzo, at 5-foot-11, can compete inside with a knack to get up a shot against a taller opponent, she is an aggressive rebounder and her efforts have been rewarded with an increase in playing time.

“She can be a force under the basket,” Honma said. “Volleyball may be her sport, so to speak, but she can be an important player (on the basketball court.”

Keep in mind, she isn’t here to dominate the Pacific West Conference, that’s unrealistic after being out so long, but she is here to contribute to this team.

“I didn’t know if I would remember everything,” Lorenzo said, “and at first, I was a mess. Little things like running correctly, breathing properly, I had to do it all wrong first and then I remembered what to do and I got better. I can still do this and it feels so good knowing that.”

She has another year and she expects to make the most of it in 2017-18. Lorenzo is an unofficial recruiter for Vulcan athletics. When athletic director Pat Guillen names a new women’s volleyball coach, she, or he, if another male is hired to coach the women’s team, will have Lorenzo out in the community, recruiting.

Starting with herself.

“It’s my last year of eligibility coming up,” she said. “I want to see if I can play both volleyball and basketball, it would be a great way to close it all out.”

“That would be awesome,” Honma said. “If she sets her mind to it, she will do it.”

If you know Jamaika and perhaps played with or against her years ago, don’t be surprised if she contacts you.

“We have a lot of athletically talented women in Honokaa,” Lorenzo said. “I have two sisters who can really play (volleyball), but they both have kids and they haven’t been playing much. I need to try to get them both out there.

“It’s your life,” she said, “you can go to school for two more years and compete, why would you say, ‘Nah, not for me?’ I’m going to be trying to get a bunch of people I know who can play at this level get off their butts and make it happen.”

The concept is, like her, straightforward and understandable. The willingness to be outspoken in chasing her goals is a learned behavior from a product of ohanaball.