In the late 1970s, the Miano family left their home in Brockton, Mass. without the family patriarch.
While Richard Miano Sr. was incarcerated, his wife and three children moved to O‘ahu seeking a fresh start. Though he was a loving and involved father, the people he associated himself with eventually caught up to him.
"We knew that he was involved with a lot of stuff," his son, Richard Jr., better known to the football world as Rich Miano, recently told Aloha State Daily when asked about his father. "I'm not sure we knew that he was gonna end up in jail, but we knew that it was a crazy lifestyle. I've witnessed things that nobody should see with their own eyes growing up. ... People shooting people, beating up people with golf clubs. All kinds of mayhem, based upon what he did for a living, which was own nightclubs and bars and his associations with mafia and everything else was just, yeah. It was problematic."
Brockton was all Rich Miano knew during his childhood.
"Born and raised, never moved. Rarely traveled. Had no idea what Polynesia was. Basically, we're in one of the most segregated parts of the country," Miano recalled. "Coming to Hawaii was like, 'whoa.' Being a minority and didn't know the culture, didn't know anything about Hawai‘i, it took two years to adjust."
Miano enrolled at Kaiser High School with just a handful of weeks remaining in his sophomore year. He took the occasional "haole" ribbing from classmates as he adjusted to a new locale. Homesick but realizing the family wasn't going back to Brockton, Miano eventually acclimated to his new environment. It helped that he lived with his best friend, younger brother Robert, and the two navigated their new lives together.
As a junior at Kaiser, Rich Miano joined the swimming and diving team, and performed well as a diver, competing in the state tournament. But in an effort to make more friends at school, he decided to give football a try for his senior year.
"I just wanted to be one of the boys," he recalled.
Though he hadn't played the sport since he was a youth, Miano quickly readjusted back to the sport. Robert saw how much Rich had enjoyed being back on the gridiron and said he'd join him on the team soon. Richard Miano Sr. had also rejoined the family on the Islands after his release from prison. Things were looking up for the Miano family.
Then, tragedy struck.
Robert and Rich Miano rode together to school one day. Robert told Rich he'd skip class to go to Spitting Cave but he'd be back to pick up Rich. He never returned.
Rich Miano knew something was wrong when he never got picked up from school, but when he returned home to see countless heads slumped and in tears, he was given a piece of news he could've never fathomed prior to that point. Robert Miano passed away following an accident at Spitting Cave. He was 16 years old.
"I just remember how sad it was for my parents and how tragic it was to realize that my best friend, my roommate, is no longer there," Miano recalled. "I just saw the anguish and just the hurt in my parents and my sister, myself, and realized that nothing worse could ever happen in life for your parents and just your whole family in general."
Before Rich Miano became an all-conference and honorable mention All-American defensive back at the University of Hawai‘i, and before his 11-year NFL career, he was just a kid who wanted to honor his brother.
"I think that was the motivating factor in part of the success — the fact that you're now playing for your brother as well," Rich Miano said. "You're playing for your family. You're trying to keep focused in terms of what you're doing in life, because otherwise you're just thinking about being sad and not trying to make the most out of your life."
Despite coming from an era where maintaining a tough exterior was paramount, Rich Miano never shied away from the heartbreak.
"I don't care how tough you are, whether you're a football player or you're a member of the mafia or whatever. When a family member dies, I think that crying and all that other stuff, it's just part of life. We cried openly. We weep openly. Even the thought now, when I talk about it, I get choked up talking about my mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister," Miano said between sniffles.
Miano enjoyed his one season of high school ball at Kaiser. More importantly, he itched to keep playing. He joined the University of Hawai‘i football team as a walk-on, wreaking havoc on the scout team. At the time, walk-ons were forbidden from eating with the rest of the team, per NCAA rules.
"We'd eat s***," Miano recalled.
Miano, who also had to pay his way through school, worked valet at a local restaurant at nights and sometimes saw his teammates on scholarship come by and wave to him. "I'm busting my a** just to have $100 in my pocket," he says.
Hawai‘i was Miano's only choice at the time as far as school and football were concerned. He didn't want to leave his parents so quickly after Robert's death.
"The trajectory of my life changed because of that. I loved football, but I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave my mom and dad. I couldn't leave the state of Hawai‘i," Miano said.
Miano's first opportunity to earn meaningful playing time was during the 1983 season, a chance he did not squander. After leading the team in tackles and interceptions in 1983, he appeared on the radar of NFL scouts. He replicated his success in 1984, racking up a team-leading 110 tackles earning All-WAC and All-Coast selections for the second year in a row. He was selected in the sixth round of the 1985 NFL Draft by the New York Jets. His $30,000 signing bonus was a far cry from his valet days, and by the end of his rookie year, he purchased the first of his handful of O‘ahu homes.
After stints with the New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles, the final stop in Miano's 11-year NFL career was with the Atlanta Falcons, where he played for another former University of Hawai‘i player in head coach June Jones. Following his retirement, he returned to the Islands, where one of his jobs was as a radio broadcast analyst for UH football games. He watched from up top at Aloha Stadium as the 1998 team suffered through an 0-12 season.
When Jones got the UH job in 1999, he plucked Miano to coach the team's defensive secondary despite having no prior coaching experience at the collegiate level. In less than 10 years, the Warriors went from 0-12 to 1998 to a 12-0 regular season in 2007, led by one of Miano's all-time favorite recruits in quarterback Colt Brennan.
"Colt was the best quarterback in the country. Colt could do everything, and if you looked at the film, every arm angle, every throw, there's no way that guy doesn't get $8 or $10 million in today's (NIL) market," Miano says.
Rich Miano shares memories of the 2007 Hawai‘i football team from his home. Photo by Christian Shimabuku (Aloha State Daily Staff) 
Rich Miano has lost both parents, as well as his sister, in the last handful of years. (Aloha State Daily Staff) 
Rich Miano recalls some of his favorite memories from his days playing for the University of Hawai‘i. Photo by Christian Shimabuku (Aloha State Daily Staff) 
Rich Miano's man cave features helmets from each team he's played on, as well as mementos from other players. Photo by Christian Shimabuku (Aloha State Daily Staff)
Jones departed for SMU following the 2008 Sugar Bowl and asked Miano to come with him to Dallas, but Miano's roots were already entrenched in Hawai‘i. Miano was elevated to associate head coach and stuck around in Mānoa through the 2011 season, departing when the school went in a different direction and hired Norm Chow ahead of the 2012 season.
Miano returned to his high school alma mater, leading Kaiser to an HHSAA Division II title in 2013 before departing to pursue other ventures.
Ever since he moved back to the Islands, Miano has been one of the go-to voices for anything and everything relating to Hawai‘i football. He's the color analyst during local broadcasts of UH football games. He's a regular on KHON2's Cover2, the state's only weekly show dedicated to high school football. In the same way Brennan was known to never turned down a picture or autograph from a fan, Miano has never turned down an interview request to discuss his passion for football in the Islands.
Through his organization Hawai‘i Speed and Quickness, local athletes have earned thousands of dollars in scholarship money and other college opportunities.
Last September, Miano was surprised in the KHON2 studio with the distinction of being named to the UH Circle of Honor for the Class of 2026. On Friday evening, he'll be one of five members officially inducted.
"People ask me, 'Are you getting in as a player? You getting in as a coach? Are you getting in as a broadcaster?' I'll be honest. I don't know what I'm getting in as, but I'm proud of all three of those things. I'm proud of my affiliation with the University of Hawai‘i for the last 40-something years."
In recent years, Miano has lost both parents, as well as his sister, Karen. But his wife, Lori, and children Kupa‘a (born Richard III) and Siena will be there to celebrate his lasting impact on Hawai‘i football.
Brockton and Honolulu are separated by over 5,000 miles, and there's no way teenage Rich Miano would have envisioned the life he built for himself in the Islands. Now 64, he's fully ingratiated himself to countless amounts of football players, coaches and fans across the state.
Though his parents, sister and brother won't be there physically on Friday, Miano likes to think they'd be proud of the way he turned tragedy into triumph.
"They would have never expected when we moved to Hawai‘i to be part of this community in such a big way," Miano said. "I do think they're still watching down from above, and they're proud. I think that I've I've reached my genetic potential in football. I don't know if I've reached my giving potential, but we certainly try, and we'll continue to try. So the more that comes our way, the more we can help other people. I always pray to them each and every day, and I hope that they are watching and they're proud."
Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
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