Kolten Wong, one of the University of Hawaii’s most successful baseball players, has been inducted into the school’s Circle of Honor, UH officials announced Friday.
Wong, who grew up in Hilo and attended Kamehameha Schools-Hawaii, hit .358 in three years with the Rainbow Warriors. A first-round pick by the St. Louis Cardinals, Wong went on to play 11 Major League Baseball seasons.
“This is amazing to be in the Circle of Honor,” Wong said. “To get my (jersey) number (14) retired (in 2017) was incredible. It was something I never expected. When I went to UH, it was just to play for my state. It wasn’t for me to make any accolades. But to get that (number retirement), and be from here, and be rooted in Hawaii like I am now, and then to get this, you can’t ask for anything better.”
He credits his father, Kaha Wong, for helping develop his baseball skills. The elder Wong, who played at USC, is a travel-ball coach and owner of a Hilo-based baseball academy.
“My dad is the pillar of Hilo baseball,” Wong said. “There’s nobody else in Hilo who’s done what he’s done for the kids there. I think he had a streak of 15 years straight of getting a kid drafted. … Just to see from our small little island what my dad was able to accomplish, obviously starting with us, and then continuing that trend … no one gives him enough credit for what he’s done.”
Wong and his brother, Kean, who also played in the big leagues, benefited from their father’s training.
“Any type of garage or open space we had, we had batting cages out there.” Wong recalled. “My dad started a hitting facility when I was in middle school. It was kind of in the middle of two buildings. He put a cement slab down. We had a cage, and gray tarp over the cage, and that’s how it started. It’s crazy to think we came from that to being in the big leagues, being at the University of Hawaii.”
Wong said he grew up following such UH players as Matt Inouye and Jon Hee. “When you grow up in Hilo, (UH is) the dream,” Wong said.
Prior to his graduation from KSH in 2008, Wong lettered in both baseball and football. He never batted worse than .500 in his four-year career with the Warriors — even slugging .660 in his state co-player-of-the-year senior season. Wong was named to All-League first team from 2005-2008, while also being a part of the Hilo Cal Ripken League that placed second in the 2003 World Series.
Wong represented the Big Island Interscholastic Federation (BIIF) with his HHSAA Foundation Hall of Honor induction in 2008.
Although he received offers from Arizona and Arizona State, among several Division I programs, he committed to UH when he was a sophomore at Kamehameha-Hawaii. “That’s how excited I was to go there,” he said.
