It turns out, that yes, you can go home again.
It turns out, that yes, you can go home again.
At least that’s how it worked out for Aukai Wong, the new assistant coach for GE Coleman on the men’s basketball team at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
“I’ve always thought about coaching, it’s been there as a long range plan all along,” Wong said Monday. “I’m just honored and humbled to have the opportunity to work with GE and UH-Hilo.”
The feeling seems mutual.
“He’s a great positive energy guy, he knows our program, all (the players) know about him, I’m just really happy to have Aukai with us.
“He’s one of those guys who has some history,” Coleman said. “When he walks in the gym everybody knows who he is, everybody respects him. When it comes to individual drills and such, he’s outstanding, it’s great to have him with us.”
Generally considered one of the best shooters to come through the BIIF and perhaps the best outside shooter in Big Island basketball history, Wong passed on the offer to sign with the fledgling Hilo team in a proposed new professional league that plans to open in the fall, though he played in two exhibition games with the Hawaii Hammerheads two weekends ago.
“It was something I considered at one time,” Wong said, “but I’ll be blunt, things were taking too long. As time went on, things kept changing, there was going to be a league then there wasn’t a league, then there was another league and as I looked at it, I just went in a whole different direction. I wanted to get some permanence in my life and still be in this game.”
Wong regularly scored 40 points or more as a senior at Hilo High School, but regrets not considering college more seriously at the time. A former UHH player tipped off his former coach, who had since been named athletic director at Carl Albert State Community College in southeastern Oklahoma. After seeing video of him, Wong was awarded a basketball scholarship and played there and at Warner Pacific before concluding his college eligibility at UH Hilo in 2011 for coach Jeff Law.
Now, one of his roles will be to encourage Big Island basketball players not to make the mistake he made coming out of high school.
“I wish I would have done more, who knows what might have happened,” Wong said. “Big Island kids and their parents really need to start understanding that if they want to play basketball in college, if they want to get some of that scholarship money for their kids, they have to be much better prepared.
“Yes, it’s learning the game, getting better at your skills,” Wong said, “but it’s much, much more than that. When you get to college, you will learn you need to sleep right, you need to eat the right kind of foods, you need to train with a real purpose, you can’t just show up and think you’re going to make it.”
Wong’s ability was at a high enough level that he bought himself some time to learn all those things while in college. These days, he said, “It’s not enough to assume you can figure it out when you get there, those days are over, you have to come ready to go, especially if you’re from Hawaii.”
Not being a traditional cradle of basketball superstars, Hawaii players are often lightly regarded on mainland rosters. That’s something Wong hopes he can help change, for the better, working with Coleman.
“I’ve been a GE guy ever since he got here,” Wong said. “He has a fire in him like I’ve never seen before, and I don’t think people know that about him. He has so much passion, I’m really excited to get started working with these guys, because I watched them last year, I know a little about them and I see some potential.
“(Senior guard) Ryley Callaghan can really bring some new elements this year, he’s as good a catch-and-shoot (coming around a screen to receive a pass) guy as I’ve seen in a while, and I know he’s a guard, but he some real skill.
“(Randan) Berinobis is a senior and I think you’ll see him take more of a leadership role,” Wong said of the local player he has worked with individually for years. “He will be the most experienced player on the roster and he understands there’s a responsibility with that. Randan is the kind of guy who isn’t afraid to go into any gym anywhere and play, and some of the new guys will be going to place they’ve never been; I think Randan can instill some leadership and confidence in this group.”
Wong is expected to be particularly helpful in the Vulcans’ perimeter players, all the guards and wings, which is the area that needs to be restructured after leading scorer Parker Farris (23.4 points per game), exhausted his eligibility last season.
When he was at Carl Albert State, his coach Mike St. John, was quoted in the newspaper one day saying of Wong, “He’s the most competitive kid in the world.”
Mix that in with what Wong describes as Coleman’s fire and things might get combustible in 2017-18 for the Vulcans.