Sports Update
With his baseball cap turned back and his massive hands wrapped around a rake handle, Itula Mili was the picture of contentment. Itula Mili paid dues
-- and then someHe was on the front lawn of his modest boyhood home on Moana Street in Laie after the most terrifyingly painful experience of his life.
Glancing at the rake, the 24-year-old Mili said, "It's been my chore ever since I was a little kid to clean the yard, take out the trash. That's the way it is in my family: Until you get married and have your own home, you still got to do your chore."
Mili, who signed a half-million dollar contract to play tight end for the Seattle Seahawks a few weeks ago, melted gracefully back into the atmosphere of the low-profile, working class Samoan neighborhood.
Soon he'll buy out his parents' mortgage and order major renovations to the little house in which he grew up without a phone, sharing a room with his older sister. But right now, raking the lawn is still important.
"I'm the same Itula," he said with a broad smile.
If Mili didn't have such strength of character, perhaps he wouldn't have been able to survive the agonizing roller-coaster ride he was forced to begin half a year ago.
Before the Western Athletic Conference championship playoff game against Wyoming in Las Vegas last December, Mili was considered by many to be a first-round pick in the NFL draft.
Turning to run upfield after a four-yard catch, Mili had his right foot planted on the hard Sam Boyd Stadium surface when a Wyoming safety hit him at the knees.
His anterior and medial collateral ligaments were blown out and a piece of bone that attaches to the ACL was broken off.
Within a week, he had surgery and within another week, he began a therapeutic hell.
Because of the injury, Mili didn't think he would be drafted. Seattle surprised him, selecting him in the sixth round.
Sometimes, even a dream team loses. Dreams don't come
true for Hawaii's bestA conglomeration of some of the best high school baseball players in Hawaii - from what may be the best year ever in Hawaii high school baseball - fell to the Ohio Storm, 5-3, Friday night in what amounted to a semifinal game of the Best of the West Classic at Rainbow Stadium.
Ohio meets the winner of the other five-team pool, Central Valley of California, at 3 p.m. Satruday for the tournament championship. The Hawaiian Stars had figured to have a good chance to become the first local team to make the final in the tournament's five-year history. Instead, after their first loss, they play Santa Cruz, Calif., for third place at 1 p.m. today. Admission is free.
The Hawaiian Stars, sporting two state players of the year (Iolani's Danny Kimura and Keoni DeRenne) and the most acclaimed Hawaii prep prospect since Sid Fernandez (Kamehameha's Dane Sardinha), still didn't have enough to overcome a four-run sixth inning by Ohio.
