Long-time Koolauloa resident and “country doctor” Marc B. Shlachter, M.D., who has been the Kahuku High team doctor for 36 years, recently reviewed the history of the Red Raiders football program.

Dr. Shlachter, who moved to Koolauloa in 1971, joined the Kahuku High football program that same year. “I was recruited by [the late] Norman Pule, the athletic director, and I was the first regular team doctor for the OIA. The OIA hadn’t had any professional doctors before then. They just used whoever showed up at a game,” he recalled. “In all that time, I only missed three varsity games: Two of them were this year, when I took some continuing education classes, and maybe six JV games — both home and away. I’m guessing I’ve been the team doctor for somewhere between 500-600 football games.”

“When I started out the first few games, I sat up in the stands and climbed on down when they had an injury; but after that it became very clear it was easier to stay on the sidelines. There weren’t any other doctors to get advice from at the time, so it was just me, learning on my own,” Dr. Shlachter continued. He added he learned from experience it was “best to go out on the field” as soon as someone was injured. “For example, there have been all sorts of broken bones. For years Jerry Tubal and I would go out there and reduce all the fractures right there on the field.”

In mid-October Dr. Shlachter and several others — Siuaki Livai, Sean Makaiau, and Kendal Masuda — presented an overview of the football team history at the Kahuku School & Public Library. He shared the following highlights:

“The team started in 1936, when the school only went up to the 8th or 9th grade. In 1937 we had such players then as Patrick Harrington, Jonah Keawe, John King, Sepi Fonoimoana and Albert Lolotai. The first coach was Lance Eto. In those early days, all of the coaches were from the Kahuku Plantation managerial staff, whose pay increases were partially based on what they did in the community, and one of those things was coaching athletic teams,” Dr. Shlachter said.

“We didn’t have any uniforms until half-way through the 1940s. Before that they were just playing with tee shirts and whatever they could think of. However, in the 40s they still played teams that didn’t have shoes, so when we played a shoeless team, we had to go barefoot as well.”

Dr. Shlachter noted that one of the early competitors was the Koolau Boys Home in Wailee for juvenile offenders. “They would put nails in their shoes and between their fingers. You’d be in a tackle, and get up and find you were bleeding. I think the last time we played them was in the late 50s or early 60s.” Kahuku also used to play Ben Parker school in Kaneohe.

“Our first full varsity team was in 1940, when grade 12 started,” Dr. Shlachter continued, under coach Kaneshige; but in ‘41 and ‘42 they didn’t play: They thought it was disrespectful because the war [World War II] was going on, but we had scrimmages and the team showed up for practices.”

He said that soon people began to think games “would actually be good for morale, so in ‘43 we went back into play and picked up our first championship. They were eager to go. Isami Tatsuguchi, who now lives in Hau’ula, was the team manager.”

“In the championship game, we were tied with Waialua. The football field didn’t look much different than it does now, like a little dust bowl. The clock was running out. [The late] Jack Uale, Sena Fonoimoana, William Enos, Hawaii Maiava and others started stomping in a circle in the huddle to raise the dust. With a few second left, they picked up this little Filipino halfback, Cayetano Cabayan, who was holding the football, and threw him over the line — which I believe was illegal. Everybody in the stands rushed out onto the field, the referees didn’t know what was happening, the game was over, and we were declared the champions.”

Dr. Shlachter added that in the first few years the Kahuku team was called “the Ramblers, then the Red and White. The Red Raiders started in the 50s when ‘Iolani donated their old uniforms with that name on them to us.”

“The OIA started in the late 1960s, and the football championship of 1972 in the old wooden Honolulu Stadium on King Street was pretty much the game that put the OIA on the map,” Dr. Shlachter said. “There was only a half-minute left in the game, when Molia Salanoa threw a touchdown pass to Pisa Finai. A lot of people had already left the stadium, when they heard the screaming. That was an unbelievable game.”

He said in one of those years a Fijian player kicked the ball so far in the Honolulu stadium “that it hit the scoreboard and broke the glass. It delayed the game 20 minutes.”

Over the years, Dr. Shlachter had ample opportunity to also observe the coaches: “I remember Famika Anae was very quiet. He was so quiet in the locker rooms at half-time that the players had to completely stop any conversation to try to hear. He talked in whispers.”

“Then we had coaches who were completely opposite. They were dynamic, and completely lost their voices by the second game. Doug Semones was one of those who had a good voice, and could be dramatic. For example, just before our 1989 game against Punahou, he was wondering what to say to their coach when a big four-inch moth fluttered on the field. He grabbed it, popped it into his mouth, chewed it up and swallowed it. ‘That’s what we’re going to do to you,’ he said.”

“Over all the years, however, I think the strongest thing about our team is the involvement of our community,” Dr. Shlachter said. For example, he remembers an excellent Hawaiian player in the mid-70s whose father came out of the stands at half-time to ask the coach, ‘How come my boy no play?’ The coach said, ‘He come practice, he play. He miss practice, he play only second half.’ The father said no more and walked back up into the stands.”

“The second half the boy went out and scored five touchdowns. When the game was over and everybody was cheering the team and this outstanding player, the father saw him, gave him one punch, knocked him out and said, ‘Don’t miss practice.’”

“Our success in getting people into the NFL has also been extraordinary,” he added, recalling that Al Lolotai was the very first pro player out of Kahuku. “Some of the people who don’t know Kahuku’s history said that Al was not a true Red Raider, because he abandoned us and went to Iolani. You have to remember in 1937, the school only went up to the 8th grade. He had to go to a four-year school if he wanted to continue his education.”

“He went on to college [Weber State University] and graduated, and in 1945 was the first Samoan-American to play professional football. He could not travel with the Washington Redskins team. He and his wife had to go on their own transportation and stay at ‘colored’ facilities. He was the one who broke the color barrier.” Lolotai later coached at Church College of Hawaii.

Dr. Shlachter also likes the fact that several hundred Kahuku students usually play each year. “It keeps them focused on their grades, and there’s a lot of camaraderie,” he said.

Asked if there are any special memories, besides the various championships over the years, Dr. Shlachter [pictured at right treating Tiloi Maiava during a 1989 championship game] recalled that in 1971 Jim Ballou missed a block that kept Kahuku out of the OIA championship that year. “People still talk about him missing that block like it was last month, but it was 36 years ago.” He also remembered “some of the fights we had” and “traveling to Waianae on the bus: “We all had to put helmets on so we didn’t get hurt by shattering glass.”

He also thought there was a lot of referee prejudice prior to ‘95 in some of the OIA-ILH Oahu Bowl championship games. “Now when they play, half the refs are from one, and half from the other.

Another person who sticks out in his mind is Albert Kamakaala, the equipment manager when Dr. Shlachter started. “He wore a leather holster for equipment, and I adopted that from him.” He also remembers Gladys Kamakeeaina, the team trainer who wore a big muumuu; and Pele Leiataua, who started as a water boy in ‘69 and is now an assistant coach. Then there are some of the players, including Junior Ah You, “who was quite famous,” Chris Naeole and Itula Mili Jr. “He was just an average player, until we realized he needed glasses,” the doctor added.

Dr. Shlachter said he doesn’t plan to retire “until I can’t find my way back to the office, but I like to work half-time now.” He added he also plans to continue serving as the Kahuku High team doctor — along with Drs. Eddie Soliai, Doug Nielson and Doug Sutherland — for which he is paid $500 a year. He traditionally donates the money back to the school at graduation as a scholarship.

— By Mike Foley

Bookmark to