They call it goosebumps where Lee Leslie is from. In Hawai‘i, the sensation he felt on the Kahuku team bus is more commonly referred to as chicken skin.
Leslie only spent one year as the head football coach of the Red Raiders, departing his native Idaho to coach the school's storied program for the 2014 season. On a drive back from Aloha Stadium, he turned around from his seat to watch members of the team sing the school's alma mater unprompted in unison.
"All the boys and their baritone voices would sing the school song. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in young men. They were just amazing. They would sing that school song in such a beautiful tone. I'll never forget it," Leslie recently told Aloha State Daily. "It was just cool. It gives me goosebumps to remember it. I just love those boys."
There's a reason the term "RR4L," also known as "Red Raider For Life," is omnipresent and used often in and beyond the North Shore. Kahuku High School has deep pride in its teams, particularly its flagship program: Football.
Kahuku football is a program filled with tradition. The tomahawk chop in full bleachers prior to kickoffs. Its distinctive alma mater, as well as the only original haka for a football team in North America, are other sources of pride.
Another emerging Kahuku football tradition? Letting its head coach walk away.
Kahuku has won 11 Hawai‘i state football titles since the turn of the millenium. Yet during that time, the Red Raiders have cycled through six different head coaches during that span.
Residents of the North Shore are still coming to grips with the removal of Sterling Carvalho, whom the school announced was no longer the head coach in a March 31 letter to Kahuku High and Intermediate School students and parents. Emails from Aloha State Daily to Kahuku principal Donna Lindsey and athletic director Gillian Yamagata were not returned.
Carvalho, who originally hails from Kaua‘i, coached at Kahuku for over a decade before being named the head coach in 2018. Carvalho coached under Reggie Torres, who was the head coach at Kahuku from 2006 to 2013, eventually becoming the offensive coordinator. In Leslie's lone season with the Red Raiders in 2014, Carvalho was the team's receivers coach.
"I remember Sterling being a very kind gentleman," Leslie said. "That's how I would describe him."
When Siuaki Livai resigned with a career record of 102-20 in 2006, Torres was picked as his replacement. One of his earliest memories was having his wife, Lita, help the team on the sidelines instead of watching with the rest of the fans.
"I brought my wife there so she wouldn't sit in the bleachers and hear all the naysayers. I mean, it's crazy in those bleachers," Torres said. "All of those things, it's tough on a coach."
Torres coached Kahuku to the state title in his first year. His 2010 squad was trending towards becoming one of the state's all-time great teams before an ineligible player disqualified the Red Raiders before the OIA championship game. After leading Kahuku to consecutive state crowns in 2011 and 2012, the Red Raiders went 6-5 in 2013. He was then asked to reapply for the job.
Leslie moved to Kahuku by himself from Idaho's Kuna High School in 2014, beating out applicants such as Torres and Livai. The Red Raiders went 9-3, falling in the state semifinals. Leslie coached former NFL players Bradlee Anae and Alohi GIlman and felt good about the direction of the program. Although he enjoyed his time on the North Shore, he wasn't able to negotiate a salary that would have allowed his wife, Jill, to relocate to the Islands.
"The charismatic detail of Kahuku is amazing. I knew I was a haole and I was from the outside coming in, but I put everything I had into the time I was there trying to put my mark on the respectability of the program and just how much I respected it," Leslie said.
"Looking back at my whole career, Kahuku was one of my highlights, and I really, really enjoyed it. When you're a head coach there, you're at the mercy of whoever the administration is and and what they're going to do. The only common denominator in all of these coaches that have come through the building since Reggie, me and the next few after that was Gillian Yamagata, who's the athletic director, and I didn't really care for her. I did not like her leadership at all. And she's the only one that I didn't care for in the whole program."
Leslie kept in touch with his former players and coaches from his time at Kahuku, continuing to root for them from afar. Once a Red Raider, always a Red Raider.
Leslie's quarterback at Kahuku, Tuli Wily-Matagi, got his coaching career started under Leslie at Stansbury High School in Utah. Wily-Matagi is now the head coach at Tooele High School in Utah, the same place where Leslie's coaching career began four decades ago.
"Those kids at Kahuku deserve the absolute best," Leslie said. "They're amazing people, and they work. They're the hardest working group of kids I've ever coached in my life."
Torres has been the co-athletic director at Kamehameha since 2021 and has not coached football since before the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked about the advice he'd give to the next coach, he kept a simple approach.
"It's tough. But if you keep any perspective, it's well worth it because of the kids. The kids there still grew up old school. 'Yes, coach,' they have respect. But here's a trick that hopefully the future coach can understand: Kids only care what you say when they know you care about them," Torres said. "The kids knew I cared about them, and knowing that I cared about them, they're receptive.
"That's why I think the kids are battling for Sterling. Why do you think they're going through all of this for him? Because they care about him, because they know he cares about them. And when you coach them that way, when you come in with a mentality that you want to build better people, and the kids know it, it's worth it.
"Those kids are great kids, and as a coach, you get great kids who play hard for you, man, that's fun, right? The passion. The kids are competitors. They don't like losing, they're passionate and just getting focused on their studies and focus on them being good people, and use that football as a tool or guide so they be better students and better prepared for what's out there after football. So, it's well worth it."
Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
