BY JOE FERRARO | WEST HAWAII TODAY Captain Cook’s Jason Alani and Traci Kahananui saw intense game faces at the Baltimore Ravens’ practice facility in Owings Mills, Md. ADVERTISING Alani and Kahananui could understand the athletes’ focus and serious attitudes.
BY JOE FERRARO | WEST HAWAII TODAY
Captain Cook’s Jason Alani and Traci Kahananui saw intense game faces at the Baltimore Ravens’ practice facility in Owings Mills, Md.
Alani and Kahananui could understand the athletes’ focus and serious attitudes. After all, this was the NFL Punt, Pass & Kick National Finals, where any of the 40 competitors between ages 6 and 15 could claim the title of national champion.
But there was one entrant who somehow didn’t seem to realize how big a stage this truly was: their son, 9-year-old Jason Alani Jr., who calmly walked around the field, chatting with others and acting as if he’d arrived at a friend’s birthday party.
“I think we took all the butterflies for him,” Kahananui said. “Our hands were sweating.”
Kahananui called her son “mellow,” and she said that calm demeanor allowed him to perform better than anyone in his age group in the history of the event.
Competing in the age 8-9 division on Jan. 14, Alani Jr. set a national finals record with his overall score of 277 feet, 4 inches, becoming the first male from Hawaii to claim a national PPK title.
Alani Jr.’s marks in two of the competition’s three disciplines — the pass (108-9) and the kick (100) — were also age 8-9 PPK records. In the other discipline, the 9-year-old recorded a punt of 68-7.
Results for the other three competitors in Alani Jr.’s age group — Nathan Cobb of St. Louis, Raylen Sharpe of Allen, Texas, and Justin Leggott of Lincoln, Neb. — weren’t available on the official PPK website. Kahananui said Alani Jr.’s overall score was approximately 30 feet better than that of runner-up Cobb.
Regardless, Alani Jr. said he didn’t know he had won until officials announced his name as the champion.
“I was surprised when I got my helmet,” Alani Jr. said, referring to the trophies he and others received for making the national finals.
Alani Jr.’s performance in the place kick floored his parents.
He qualified for the national PPK event by winning the San Diego Chargers team championship — one of the NFL’s 32 regional PPK competitions — on Dec. 11 at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. Only the nation’s top four athletes in each of PPK’s 10 age groups can advance to the national finals.
In San Diego, Alani Jr. posted a total score of 244-4, which ranked him third behind St. Louis Rams team champion Cobb (249-8) and Dallas Cowboys champion Sharpe (245-11). But he recorded a place kick of just 74 feet.
Kahananui, a 1996 Konawaena graduate, served as her son’s punt and place kick coach for the past two years, regularly working with her son at Captain Cook’s Greenwell Park. She and Alani said Alani Jr.’s place kicks were consistently around 80 feet.
Neither parent expected anything close to 100 feet at the national finals in Owings Mills, a suburb of Baltimore.
“When he hit 100, it was a big wow for us,” said Alani, a 1998 Lahainaluna graduate.
Alani Jr. said he didn’t really have any high expectations for his place kick.
“I didn’t know (how I’d do),” Alani Jr. said. “I just kicked, and that’s all. I just concentrated on what I had to do.”
Kahananui figured Alani Jr. had won a national title even before the official announcement after the end of competition.
Alani and Kahananui figured Cobb would provide Alani Jr. his stiffest competition, and the two performed on the same side of the field, allowing Alani Jr.’s parents to compare overall scores.
After both Alani Jr. and Cobb performed, Kahananui said, Cobb’s parents approached Alani and Kahananui and offered congratulations.
The next day, Alani Jr., the rest of the PPK national finalists, and their parents attended an NFL divisional playoff game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans — a 20-13 Ravens win — at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium.
Alani Jr. and the PPK competitors, recognized for their accomplishments at the end of the third quarter, enjoyed watching much of the game at field level.
“I liked to go in the stadium and stand in the stadium,” Alani Jr. said.
While Kahananui and Alani enjoyed the all-expense-paid trip, they experienced the anxiety of not knowing if Alani Jr.’s performance at the San Diego Chargers’ team championship was good enough to qualify for the national finals. NFL PPK officials had scheduled three PPK team championships — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers competition on Dec. 17, and the Arizona Cardinals and Indianapolis Colts events on Dec. 18 — after the weekend of Dec. 10-11. Alani Jr.’s parents knew their son wouldn’t qualify for the national finals if two other competitors from the remaining three team championships performed better than the 9-year-old did in San Diego.
After Dec. 18, Kahananui regularly checked the Internet for results of the last three events, and she also fired off a series of emails to PPK officials. She and Alani didn’t know Alani Jr. had qualified until Dec. 21.
As an 8-year-old a year earlier, Alani Jr. also won the San Diego Chargers team championship but finished eighth overall.
“Every day, every night, we were just checking to see if A.J. got bumped off,” Alani said. “It took a long time. We were sweating bricks.”
Besides Alani, three other Big Islanders also participated in the San Diego team championship, including last year’s age 6-7 girls national champion, Kealakekua’s Jayla Medeiros, Kailua-Kona’s Kanoe Piltz (girls 6-7) and Medeiros’ sister, Jayssa (14-15).
Competing in the girls 8-9 age group this year, Jayla Medeiros won her second consecutive San Diego region title with a total score of 177-1. However, she barely missed earning her second straight trip to the national finals, finishing fifth overall — just behind Cleveland Browns region champion Catherine Rock (182-2) of Highland Heights, Ohio.
The Medeiros sisters, Alani Jr. and Piltz all posted the top scores in their respective age groups at a sectional competition held Nov. 12 at Hilo’s Panaewa Park. There, they competed against other athletes from Oahu and Maui, needing to score among the top four participants in the San Diego region — which also includes athletes from Southern California and Nevada — to make the team competition.
Kailua-Kona’s Valany Gonsalves (girls 10-11) also won her age group in sectional competition but could not attend the San Diego team championship.
The five Big Islanders also advanced through local competition, with one event held Sept. 3 at Honokaa’s Parks and Recreation Complex and two others held Sept. 24 at Kealakekua’s Clarence Lum Won Park and Kailua-Kona’s Old Kona Airport Park.
jferraro@westhawaiitoday.com
