Melanie Huddleston was just being a loving mom when she approached the Tribune-Herald after the 2016 high school football season with a request.
Is there any way, she asked, that the Big Island media could see fit to create a third postseason accolade, thus allowing her son, Kahale, to be honored. He did, after all, just rush for 216 yards in a state playoff game.
Kahale Huddleston was denied then, but that might have been the last time, because that breakthrough game against Leilehua was just the beginning, a special hint of what was to come in 2017, both for him and the Hilo High Vikings.
There were no votes taken this year, no media discussions and no coaches’ opinions were sought.
After leaving defenses in his wake all season to the tune of 1,458 yards rushing and 35 total touchdowns and leading his school to its first HHSAA football championship, Huddleston was the runaway selection as the Tribune-Herald/West Hawaii Today BIIF Offensive Player of the Year.
“It feels amazing,” Huddleston said. “If it wasn’t for my teammates and all my coaches, everyone helped me get this.”
For the record, the senior scored four different ways, rushing for 27 touchdowns, catching three, taking four kickoff returns back for score and even tossing a touchdown, averaging nearly 10 yards a carry.
For Huddleston – the son of Kahale and Melanie with sisters Kahale (older) and Kahali’a (younger) – everything is about the Chip.
“(Thirty-five) doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said. “I just try to do everything for my team and try to work hard for my team, and I just wanted to win the state championship.”
In a 35-19 victory in the Division I final against Damien Nov. 18 at Aloha Stadium, Huddleston put the Vikings on surer footing with his final two touchdowns, rushed for 99 yards and reached the pinnacle for the second time in the past three and a half years.
Just before starting high school, Huddleston was a member of the Hilo baseball team that captured the 2014 PONY World series in Pennsylvania. Huddleston once thought baseball was his sport, but football “just came naturally to me.”
Hilo coach Kaeo Drummondo is glad it did.
“We wish we had him for another year,” Drummondo said. “His speed translates to the football field so well. The film doesn’t do him justice.”
Drummondo first realized Huddleston had the ability to be special during a seven-on-seven tournament in Las Vegas during Huddleston’s sophomore year, and he took over as the Vikings’ workhorse as a junior, despite battling an early season injury.
As a senior, Huddleston quite simply was a touchdown maker extraordinaire.
“Coming off the Leilehua game, we knew very well what we had coming back,” Drummondo said. “As long as he worked in the weight room and ran track. He took care of himself in the offseason.”
The rest of the state knew what Hilo had right off the bat when Huddleston scored six touchdowns against Iolani in August, but four scores became Huddleston’s norm – he reached the figure in a game four times, often sitting out of second halves of games.
On a typical play this season, Huddleston veered right or left, juked a defender, ran toward the sideline and was gone. But his favorite play this season was a catch.
The player of the year was the star of what was arguably the BIIF play of the year.
“I’m not sure there is a better catch in 2017,” Drummondo said.
With Hilo locked in a tie at Kamehameha and backed up at its own 8 facing third-and-forever, Huddleston ran a wheel route and was lock-downed by near-perfect man coverage but still managed to high-point a ball thrown by Kaleo Apao near midfield, all the while never breaking stride, to race for a touchdown.
“It just happened,” Huddleston said. “I just wanted to score for my team.”
He’s in no hurry to decide his college football future, focusing for now on improving his academic resume and working out to get bigger and stronger. He does plan to run track again.
“Not sure yet, college offers are still coming in,” Huddleston said. “Not really that many offers.”
Melanie Huddleston, meanwhile, didn’t have to have to worry about her son getting attention this season, because Kahale owned the headlines – and just about everything else he touched this season.