'Iolani Bowling

‘Iolani Bowling

Even though I’m not employed as a full-time teacher at a school, for my school portrait I’m showcasing the ‘Iolani Bowling team.  As an alumnus of the program and as this is my 7^th year as a coach, I feel like I have a pretty solid idea of what our program is all about.  This summer marked my 10^th anniversary of being a part of the ‘Iolani athletics department.  My participation with ‘Iolani athletics began in the summer of 2005, as a student athlete.  Throughout high school I participated in various sports, mainly bowling, but also wrestling, judo and track and field. 

The ‘Iolani athletics philosophy is, as I’m sure many of you know, the “One Team” philosophy.  Branded by Father Bray, it represents the corner stone of what we try to instill in all of our student athletes.  “One Team” is more than just a motto, it’s what we strive to express on a day to day basis.  At its basis, “One Team” means that we strive to achieve our goals, not as individuals, but as a cohesive unit.  We treat no one like they are more important than any other team member because no one team member IS more important than anyone else.  We strive for victory, humbly and with dignity.  But even if we don’t win, we strive for unity, cooperation, comradery, humility, pride and sportsmanship.  Which, if we display those qualities, is more important than a victory.  ‘Iolani students are taught these ideals and are expected to live them.  At the end of the day, we aren’t trying to produce great athletes, we’re trying to produce great people.   

As a coach, I try to first and foremost, teach my players what it means to be an ‘Iolani student.  They have been given a privilege coveted by many, and they should appreciate what they’ve been offered.  Secondly, I try to teach them to the best of my ability so they can improve as bowlers and find success in whatever form they’ve set out as their goal.  I try my hardest to be the coach I wish I had in my early career as an ‘Iolani Bowler.  It’s a long and complicated story.  To be brief, I am a four year varsity starter, however, I was initially put on JV my freshman year because my coach was not happy that I came in with prior lessons.  She enjoyed having everyone be her product, and since I didn’t learn from her, I must have learned wrong.  I was treated differently than everyone else and had to prove myself more-over to get anywhere on the team.  In the end, she screwed up as a coach and put herself in a position to be removed from that position.  I strive every day to be everything she wasn’t so that this generation of bowlers have a positive experience while under my coaching. 

My bowlers all share the same schooling and same values that I was taught.  However, they come from different backgrounds.  For example, I came into the bowling program as a bowler.  I had prior lessons and had my own coach.  I learned from someone else.  These guys come to me fresh, in my 7 years as a coach, I’ve only had a handful of bowlers; real bowlers (had formal lessons and compete outside of school).  Most come to the bowling program because they hear it’s easy and fun, which it is.  Not many athletic programs can boast that the only conditioning is the air conditioning.  They do, however, come from other athletic programs and have their own set of skills they bring to the table.  I try my hardest to convey the knowledge I have in ways they can understand.  One of the sentiments from the Place and Community Based Education in Schools book we had to read was that students have previous knowledge.  They have ways of looking at things based on what they already know, it’s the teacher’s job to translate what you want to teach them in a way that mirrors what they already know so they can understand it.  My bowlers come from various other sports, baseball, basketball, football, volleyball, etc.  I’m not well versed in many sports, I grew up playing baseball, what I did for ‘Iolani’s wrestling team stretches the definition of the word “wrestle” and I went out for track because the throwers ate a lot.  I have a fair understanding of the different sports in the world, so I try to relate information about bowling to their backgrounds.  Getting to know my bowlers as people, I think, is what gives me the most success when I try to reach them as a coach.

Freshman Year 2006

Sophomore Year 2007

Junior Year 2008

Senior Year 2009

2008 HHSAA medal

Senior year Kaua'i 4th place

The Eddie Hamada Award

Boys JV 2010

 

'Iolani Boys Bowling Varsity JV Black and JV Red 2011

Just one of the medals my Boys got for winning the ILH

'Iolani Boys and Girls JV 2012

Boys JV 2013 

Boys JV 2014

Boys Varsity and JV 2015

Culture of community around the school – how does that culture feed into the school?

http://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/HI/Honolulu/Moiliili.html

The community surrounding ‘Iolani is Mō’ili’ili.  Historically, this is a community of Japanese American farmers.  The surrounding structures and establishments speak to this.  The Japanese Cultural Center is located not far from the school.  There are Buddhist churches in the area as well as former Japanese Language schools.

Based on the history of the area geographically, the type of people who would settle here would be farmers.  The topography of this region, at the time of Japanese immigration to the cane and pineapple fields, was fertile swampland.  Immigrants looking to make a life for their own would have settled here to grow crops.  My family was one of the farming families who settled this area in order to start their new lives, after working in the fields.  My family turned from agriculture to real estate when it converted the home on their property into an apartment building for rent.

http://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/HI/Honolulu/Moiliili-Demographics.html

http://www.areavibes.com/honolulu-hi/mxcully-moiliili/demographics/

 Today’s layout of this area speaks to this change.  Brought on by the construction of the Ala Wai Canal, urbanization of the area formed the dense population in such a small area.  The area surrounding ‘Iolani School are various high-rise condominiums as well as low-rent apartments and run down houses.

The racial population of Mō’ili’ili remains mostly “Asian” (the majority of that group being Japanese).  However, a good sized portion of the population is Caucasian.  That’s likely due to the fact that the three major condo’s (the Royal ‘Iolani, ‘Iolani Court Plaza and Marco Polo) attract a lot of retiree’s who want to spend their golden years in Hawai’i.

School culture itself – iolani’s culture

The school doesn’t derive a lot of its culture from the surrounding area.  To be perfectly honest, not a lot of the families within the surrounding areas would be able to afford to send their kids to ‘Iolani.  While there are expensive condos where people live, the majority of the housing in the area are houses that are falling apart or crowded old apartments.  The majority of the students in this area go to Kaimuki High School, which is one street over from ‘Iolani. 

‘Iolani, as a private school, has a prejudiced view from the general public.  It does have a high tuition to go to school there.  Currently, full tuition without scholarship is $20,900.  Considering high school education costs more than college in Hawa’i makes people make a big deal about this. 

Average commute time for ‘Iolani is 23.6 minutes.  This is just an average amount of time students take to get to campus.  This is not an accurate estimate of where the students originate from.  Students can live in the buildings next to campus (as I do) or can live as far away as Makakilo, Kahuku or Waialua.

The ethnic demographic of ‘Iolani has as its largest category “Asian/Pacific Islander”.  However, I can assure you from my experience the number would be just as high if the “Pacific Islander” category was left out of the “Asian” category. 

http://private-schools.startclass.com/l/116087/Iolani-School

 The fact that this is a private institution and is very expensive to go to, ‘Iolani generally has a target on its back.  Whether it’s for athletics, academics or for general prejudices people have about the school or its students.  In our defense, not all the students who come out of ‘Iolani act privileged and spoiled.  In the defense of those who prejudge ‘Iolani kids, yeah, some are spoiled brats.  In the athletics department, historically our teams have viewed themselves as the underdogs due to their limited size (being mostly a Japanese student body has its physical limitations).  It’s interesting to think that a school with so much resources views itself as having to rise up over obstacles.  Despite not being a dominant power in the ILH for many sports, ‘Iolani has other areas that it competes in and does well.  The various clubs and teams ‘Iolani endorses have had their successes in the past and present.  The various robotics teams have done well on the state and national level as well as speech/debate teams and the economics teams.