As you might expect from his last name, Ethan Awa started playing basketball “as soon as I could.”
As you might expect from his last name, Ethan Awa started playing basketball “as soon as I could.”
But it was another sport that eventually hooked him, because even as he was learning to dribble, he was also riding on his family ranch.
“I just really started to love rodeo,” he said.
When he struck up a childhood friendship with Chase Kahiau Onaka, a partnership was born.
Awa would go on to his make his mark at Konawaena, but it had nothing to do with the hardwood.
With three clean runs in team roping, Awa and Onaka took fifth at the National High School Finals Rodeo in Rock Springs, Wyo., a week-long event that wrapped up Saturday and featured more than 1,600 contestants.
“We’ve been riding together so long, we went up and rode with a lot of confidence,” said Awa, who’s the nephew of Bobbie Awa, the brainchild of the Wildcats’ girls basketball empire.
Ethan Awa played two years of basketball at Konawaena, but rodeo had long since stole his heart. When he was in middle school, he and Onaka competed at a national event in New Mexico.
“A handful of people (on the mainland), they don’t know rodeo is big in Hawaii,” Awa said. “But others now.”
The Hawaii contingent placed 24th at a rodeo that also included paniolo from Canada and Australia.
“The biggest rodeo in the world,” Hawaii High School Rodeo Association president Rachelle Onaka said. “This is probably the best Hawaii has ever performed at the NHSFR.”
Big Islanders did more than their share of heavy lifting.
Honokaa senior Patricia Rincon placed fifth in girls cutting and earned a scholarship along with Chase Kahiau Onaka and Awa. Onaka, a Makua Lani graduate, came away with three scholarships in all. He can use them as he attempts to further his rodeo career at Cal Poly.
Awa would like to compete in college as well. He’s got one more year of high school, and he’ll spend it with a new partner in team roping.
“I also want to qualify in calf roping,” he said.
Sierra Gleason was 23rd in cutting, while Ikena Nakoa (both from Kamehameha-Hawaii) placed 26th and was 10th overall in the All-Around Rookie Cowgirls standings.
In barrel racing, Honokaa graduate Mia Nakachi finished 31st, earning a $500 senior scholarship.
“Gabrielle Gleason (KS-Hawaii) did a beautiful job representing Hawaii in the queens contest,” Rachelle Onaka said.