Hawaii Kicking Lessons – Round 2
It was a familiar call last month when Mr. Arakawa reached out to Coach Brent to discuss coming to Honolulu, Hawaii to help dial in his team’s kickers and punters from the prestigious ’Iolani School. 10 years ago Coach Brent flew out to Hawaii to do the same thing with another family – Mr. Kaiahua and his son from the High School next door!
Coach Brent spent 3 days in Hawaii working with 2 of ’Iolani’s football players – Mika and Wailoa. Coach Arakawa had 3 main goals for the training:
- Be able to hit touchbacks on Kickoffs
- Make the PAT operation automatic
- Improve overall consistency on Punts
By the end of the three days, all 3 objectives were met, and some! Through the use of intricate, but easy to follow kicking drills, slow-motion video analysis, and hard work from the students, the 3-day kicking crash course was a major success.
One of the unique things about the training was that the main kicker Mika, is a female! Kicking World trains about 8-10 female kickers a year, one of them making history, so this was not anything out of the norm for Coach Brent. However, Mika’s leg strength was Top 2 out of all the years of training female kickers that he can remember. Going into the training, Mika’s ‘personal best’ field goal was 45 yards as she described – on a very windy day. By Day 3 Mika hit (3) 48-yard field goals in a row, and was just short on a few 50 yarders, with little wind! Her ball striking ability was very impressive as you’ll see in the video.
The second specialist, Wailoa, is a multi-position player who splits time between being wide receiver, punter, and now being their slated kickoff specialist. Before the week both Mika and Wailoa were maxing out their kickoffs around the 3-yard line (57 yards) and unable to generate enough power to reach the end zone. On Day 3 Wailoa not only started getting touchbacks, but he hit 5 out of 6 touchbacks in a row, with 3 going over 5 yards deep in the end zone (65+ yards)!
It was a fun 3 days with not only the students but with the ’Iolani School Football coaching staff. Hawaii hospitality is perhaps one of the best in the US (maybe 2nd to Coach Brent’s southern hospitality State of Texas, hehe). Miles (Arakawa) took Coach Brent out for dinner to 2 different WOW restaurants where they chowed down on delicious native Hawaiian food including the best pork and bread, and sushi rolls Brent ever ate!
Coach Arakawa and the ’Iolani Football team are already talking about bringing Coach Brent back, so we at Kicking World are excited about the opportunity to travel to a tropical island and make a positive impact on our student’s lives through the art of kicking.
Enjoy the photos and videos from training sessions and part of the leisure time (including an incredible ‘doors off’ Helicopter tour above the island of Kauai where Jurassic Park was filmed, and a sunset cruise around the Napali Coast, during Coach Brent’s 2nd visit to Oahu, Hawaii… Aloha and Mahalo!
