Titan Lacaden’s football career was never the same following the events of June 10, 2017.
That's when Lacaden, then just 11 years old at the time, was offered a football scholarship by the University of Hawaii, his hometown team.
Navigating the aftermath of the early offer was a challenge for the Lacaden family, but the grind continued. Now, eight years later, Lacaden is set to suit up for the Rainbow Warriors after a four-year varsity football career at Saint Louis.
After steadily gaining fans with his electric play at the high school level, Lacaden has stayed true to the first college team that saw potential in him while living up to the hype he built for himself as a youth.
The beginning
Lacaden was naturally attracted to football. His father, Frank, has coached at Saint Louis since 1990. Charles-Titan, Titan for short, is the youngest of Frank’s five sons, all of whom played football.
“I started at the age of four,” Titan Lacaden recalls. “I wasn't pushed from anybody, not even from my dad, my brothers. It was kind of something I always was drawn to, just being around the game so much, being around practice, being around my brothers’ games, being the water boy definitely just gave me that drive to achieve something and just be like them and follow their footsteps. I've always just had my love for football and it's kind of helped me through life.”
Jake Lacaden, a 2014 graduate at Saint Louis, was the first of Frank’s sons to play football at the Division I level, earning a scholarship from the University of Nevada, where he was a linebacker before medically retiring in the spring of 2017.
Although Jake’s football career was cut short, both Frank and Titan point to his college career as a major influence on Titan; Jake proved it was possible for a Lacaden to play football at the next level while receiving a free education.
Jake, who is 11 years Titan’s senior, fondly recalls watching his brother play flag football for Play Sports Hawaii. When the league held its playoffs at Aloha Stadium and split the playing field into three, a 5-year-old Titan Lacaden would continue his touchdown runs by carrying the ball through the real end zone in Halawa.
“It's funny, because everybody is laughing and stuff, but then it kind of puts things into perspective. As a 4- or 5-year-old ball player, he understands that no, this is actually the real touchdown,” Jake Lacaden says. “We talk about full circle moments. I know Aloha Stadium isn't here anymore, but, just as he started to grow older, it was the drive he had.”
Although Titan Lacaden was always one of the smallest players on the field, he always found ways to rise above the competition, which stemmed from his work ethic.
“He wanted to go out and catch a ball, do ladder drills, do all these things,” Jake Lacaden recalled. “The fundamentals and the running around and all of that, you started to see some growth in the potential of what he could be because he was kind of doing these spectacular things.”
Lacaden evolved with the sport with age. Flag football turned into tackle football, where his physicality in highlights shines through despite his 5-foot-6 stature, with a strength that comes from squatting almost three times his body weight in the gym.
Titan’s ability was paired with his mind. Frank remembered being taken aback by one of the early signs when Titan was 6.
“I’ll never forget this on the drive home, we're in the truck and I'm driving, and he's in his baby voice. He's talking about cover two (defenses), and he's talking about (the apex defender), or where you sit in between one receiver and the other. He was describing it, and I had to look back into the rearview mirror, and I couldn't believe that I was talking to a 6-year-old, because that's the kind of conversations at the time I was having with high school kids,” Frank Lacaden said.
Prior to signing with Nevada, Jake Lacaden was recruited by Nick Rolovich, a former University of Hawaii quarterback who served as Nevada’s offensive coordinator from 2012 to 2015. When Rolovich became the head coach at his alma mater following the 2015 season, his relationship with the Lacadens, particularly Jake, set the stage for national attention.
The offer
Titan Lacaden’s precocious talent on the gridiron continued to blossom, where he dominated while playing multiple positions for the All Blacks Crusaders, a local youth football organization.
Rolovich and UH hosted a youth football camp, where an 11-year-old Titan Lacaden was the star and showed his skill in every facet. Rolovich caught up with Titan’s parents and siblings, although Jake wasn’t in attendance.
“Titan looks great,” Rolovich messaged Jake.
“I'm just like, hey, maybe one day he would love to play for Uncle Rolo,” Jake Lacaden recalled. “You know what I mean? That's how our relationship was.”
“I'm gonna offer Titan,” Rolovich responded.
Jake didn’t believe it at first and laughed it off.
“I'm just sitting there, and I'm just kind of like, ‘Oh, coach, that'd be crazy if you did that.’ Like, the kid is only 11 years old,” Jake Lacaden said. “He's like, ‘I'm gonna talk to your dad.’ So I was like, wait, hold on, this is for real.
“I sent it to my dad. I'm like, let me know what happens. Sure enough, my dad calls me. The best way to describe it is like somebody was talking like they just seen a ghost. The reaction of like, how somebody looks right when they look at a ghost, or they've seen a ghost. He’s just like, ‘Brah, they offered.’ I was like, ‘Huh? What do you mean?’ He's just like, Rolo offered Titan.’”
Upon receiving the offer, Frank, who was managing Titan’s Twitter account at the time, announced the news.
“When Rolo called me and he said, ‘Hey, I know Titan’s 11.’ But he goes, ‘I want to be the first to offer him, and I think he's just super talented for his age.’ I was like, wow,” Frank Lacaden recalled. “And then I told (Rolovich), can I just put this on Twitter? Because that's what I was seeing, right? I didn't know how all of this worked. This social media stuff was new to me. He said yeah, go ahead. I put it out and, holy smokes, it just blew up. You had good and a lot of bad. Everyone around the nation putting in their two cents.”
The backlash
The tweet, which still exists on X, has approximately 1,100 retweets and 1,600 likes. “Blessed with a D1 offer. Thank you Coach Rolo!!” it reads.
“Such foolishness,” said one reply. “That's why that college is garbage,” read another.
Titan Lacaden’s early offer drew national headlines. Although not unprecedented, a college scholarship offer for a preteen is still extremely rare. Jake and Frank were both inundated with direct messages asking for interviews and access.
On one hand, the Lacaden family couldn’t be happier for its youngest son. On the other, they knew they couldn’t shield him forever. For every person in their real lives who sent sincere congratulatory messages, internet trolls were ubiquitous.
“You know, I love my boys, but I'm a real bad salesman. I don't know how to market them,” Frank Lacaden said. “I just let them do their thing. I don't really post much about them, so that's what happened. We just posted ‘thank you for blessing us with an offer.’ Bingo, everything just went viral, I guess.
“I kind of was tossing it up, should I even show (Titan) the negativity part? Because he's 11 years old, and I didn't know how he would be, but I explained about everybody having opinions. I asked him, you want to see some negative stuff or do we just keep moving along? He read it. I was ready to kick myself in the butt, but the way he handled it, that was the special part.”
Frank explained that jealously towards Titan even carried over to training and workout sessions, where kids older than Titan would try to outdo him at every turn.
“Everybody lined up to go against him. He never backed down, even with the high schoolers,” Frank Lacaden said. “As the years went on, that line got shorter. Nobody wanted to go against him after a while. Had a lot of haters, but he kept along, and it kept him focused. That's why he's special, not just in athletic ability. His IQ, and the way he handles pressure, is not like a normal kid.”
As Jake surmised, Titan would continue to be sure of himself as the years progressed, balancing his humility with the understanding of the target on his back.
“A kid that is 11 years old, and kind of just didn't ask for all of this just yet in his life, it never fazed him,” Jake Lacaden said. “One thing I can say about Titan is he’s carried it so well. He's never let it get the best of him. He's never once doubted himself. He's confident. That also comes from the support of our family as well.”
Titan Lacaden had less to say about the entire ordeal when asked recently about it by Aloha State Daily.
“I wouldn’t say the treatment that I've got from the people I call family in my life changed,” Titan Lacaden said, “but it was definitely kind of just relief, really, for me, my family, but especially for my parents. Just knowing that now I'm able to have that opportunity to further my education and my athletic career, and it's going to be for free, and so they don't have to work those extra hours, getting those extra overtimes. I'm just trying to pay for my tuition. That was just my main goal, just to help my parents. And God blessed me with that.”
Although the scholarship offer was extended to Titan Lacaden as an 11-year-old, NCAA rules didn’t allow him to sign until Dec. 4, 2024, a signature years in the making.
“My dad had even kind of mentioned that we understand the magnitude of a scholarship, but we also know that for as fast as it can come, it can also get taken away just as fast,” Jake Lacaden said. “And the game itself is just like that.”
The injury
Titan Lacaden etched himself and Saint Louis back in the Hawaii history books in 2024. After an 0-2 start to the season, the Crusaders found their stride after moving Lacaden from slot receiver to running back, prevailing over three-time defending HHSAA champion Kahuku in the state title game. Saint Louis won its first state title in five years, upping its leading total of HHSAA state tournament and prep bowl championships to 22.
Not bad for a senior season that almost never got off the ground.
In the summer prior to his senior year, Lacaden broke his right foot during a pylon football tournament after two players fell on it.
Although the initial recommendation was to rest for six to eight weeks, the competitor in Lacaden still wanted to set the tone and prove himself in preseason practices, a balance he juggled well enough to be ready in time for the team’s season opener at Kahuku on Aug. 10. Lacaden ran twice for a total of 26 yards and caught the ball once for no gain before reinjuring the same foot. This time, a bone bruise sidelined him for four weeks.
"We did a lot of praying,” said Frank Lacaden.
The championship
When Lacaden was reinserted into the starting lineup, he continued to face double teams as a receiver. The book had been out on Titan and Saint Louis for years: To contain the Crusaders, start with limiting Lacaden.
Saint Louis’ coaching staff, led by first-year head coach Tupu Alualu, decided to move Lacaden to running back, where he would be handed off the ball instead of hoping to catch it.
In six games, Lacaden ran for 925 yards and 14 touchdowns, averaging 7.7 yards a carry. All the while, his foot was still healing. He was meeting constantly with doctors Calvin Oishi and Pat Ariki, as well as his personal trainer, Kimo Luna.
“They had a gameplan for him,” Frank Lacaden said. “He wanted to go all the time, no matter what he felt. During this state championship, from the time he came out, his foot wasn't totally healed. It was still basically broken, so he's doing all of this with a broken foot. I don't know how he does this.
“It was the first time for us, because he's never been hurt. It was a first time for us. It was a lot of praying, a lot of trust, and us being surrounded by good people.”
Saint Louis conquered a pair of top teams in Campbell and Kahuku in the state tournament, with Lacaden racking up 405 yards of total offense with five touchdowns. The championship game held on Nov. 29 was a special showcase for Lacaden, who was playing at his future home at UH’s Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex for the first time.
“Definitely at least that first week after the game, the championship game, kind of just still in disbelief, even like ‘til now, it still feels surreal,” Titan Lacaden says. “But I'm just kind of grateful for where my life has been taken, and just the stuff I've been able to achieve through God's grace and mercy. I'm just grateful.”
Lacaden took home a bevy of awards during and after his senior season, which included a handful of Spectrum Impact Player awards and Cover2’s Hawaii Offensive Player of the Year. He also repeated as a consensus All-State selection.
The future
Frank Lacaden remembers the tears coming from his kids in the TSA line when it was time to drop Jake off at the airport over a decade ago. It occurred to him then that if one of his other kids ever reached the levels Jake did, deep down, he hoped it would be for the Rainbow Warriors.
“We got a good football team I think here in Hawaii, and I think we have a lot of good athletes that come from the islands,” Frank Lacaden. “We're in a special place, and we can make things happen here. I'm glad it worked out for Tite.”
Frank and his wife, Angie, are already planning trips to see Titan and the 'Bows play on the road next season.
With each performance, Titan Lacaden has given UH coaches and fans hope for a better tomorrow. Head coach Timmy Chang, who has gone 13-25 through his first three seasons, made the bold claim that Lacaden was the best player in the state upon signing him.
Although Hawaii has had two different head coaches since Rolovich departed for Washington State in 2020, Lacaden maintained his desire to play for Hawaii, citing the relationships his family has with the current coaches. Frank Lacaden himself coached Chang, a Saint Louis alumnus, while Jake Lacaden used to be coached by associate head coach Chris Brown at Saint Louis.
At UH, Lacaden will reunite with Micah Alejado, a former teammate of his with the All Blacks Crusaders, who enters 2025 as the favorite for UH’s vacant starting quarterback competition.
Lacaden stuck with his UH commitment despite a scholarship offer from Incarnate Word and a walk-on offer from USC. In an era where NCAA athletes are permitted to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL), it is believed that playing for the Trojans would have been potentially more lucrative than suiting up for the Rainbow Warriors, even without a scholarship.
Players like Titan Lacaden at a school like Hawaii routinely get poached in the transfer portal, where six-figure offers are dangled if a player is appealing enough to a Power Four school. Perhaps one of the biggest lessons he learned in getting unwanted attention at 11 was to block out the noise and stay true to his priorities.
“The money is not something I'm very interested in right now. I'm a Hawaii kid, and I don't see myself living anywhere else,” Titan Lacaden said. “Being able to make my name down here and have a good reputation is something that's very important to me, and that's what I want, just to be able to have a good name on my family.”
Lacaden’s senior season at Saint Louis has compelled Hawaii’s coaches to give him a try at both running back and receiver in a hybrid role. Once he enrolls in the summer, he hopes to make an immediate impact.
The University of Hawaii football program wanted Titan Lacaden for a long time. Now it has him.
“Definitely excited, a little bit nervous, got some butterflies here and there,” Titan Lacaden said. “With being on a stage like that, I’m just thankful for the opportunity, something I've been dreaming about since I was a kid.”
