Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 8, 1 August 2012 — Norm! [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Norm!

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2012 schedule The Warriors' Sept. 1 . season opener at USC will r be televised nationally on i F0X at 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time (1:30 p.m. Hawai'i). The Warriors' first home k game will be against Lamar, Sept. 15, 6 p.m. at Aloha Stadium. UH will mark its Mountain West Conference * debut at home Sept. 22 A against Nevada. Fora full schedule, visit hawaiiathletics.com.

j MO'OLELO NUI ^ > COVER FEATURE /

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Norm Chow's senior portrait in the 1 964 Oahuan yearbook. Punahou classmates aren't surprised Chow landed the head coaching job at UH. They're just surprised it took so long. - Courtesy: Punahou School

"AH you ean hear is this 'whoosh,' " Norm Chow said. "It's pitch hlaek. No one could see anything. I never forgot that. My dad would piek him up from work and we sat there through his workout." That sacrifice by the father made a lasting impression on the younger Chow. "Now life is such that you pay it forward," said Norm Chow, who is part-Hawaiian. "You try to help other guys." It is that reasoning Chow heeame the 22nd football eoaeh in UH history in December. Unlike his previous job interview with UH after the firing of Fred vonAppen in 1998, Chow felt this time, the interview was more sincere. "I left that (first interview) knowing full well it was a token effort," Chow said. "I was not what they had in mind, whieh was fine." But this time around, Chow, then Utah's offensive coordinator preparing for Sun Bowl, sensed urgency by UH. He admittedly was more focused on the game than the interview. But the selection eommittee members had a different attitude. "It heeame obvious they wanted something besides a football eoaeh," Chow said. "They wanted somebody who could help a little bit. At this time in my life, maybe I ean do something. I don't want to sound like this magnanimous guy, but it just hit me that I grew up around the corner over there (gesturing toward Palolo Valley from his office in Mānoa) and never stepped foot in this office, (had) never been in this building." R0AD T0 UH Chow's coaching philosophies started taking shape before his coaching career began in 1970 at Waialua High, where he landed a special-education teaching job. Besides his father, he credits former teachers and former coaches for setting him straight. The 1964 Punahou School graduate remembered how then-Buffanblu basketball eoaeh Bud Scott sat him down at the school snack bar one day and told him what was expected of a team captain. That

1964 team won the Interscholastic League of Honolulu title. "I use some of those thoughts today," Chow said. As a sophomore, he made the var-

sity football team. Although he was a second string guard as a sophomore in football, Chow remembers then-offensive line eoaeh Charlie Ane working him hard at practice. " ' You know, son, it ever occurred to you that he's trying to make you better?'" Chow said his father explained to him. "That stuck with me. I tell the kids that, too. Nothing personal in this business, but it's our obligation to make you the best player you ean possibly be,

(make you) the best person you ean possibly be." Chow took what his father said to heart, being the best player he could possibly be. He would earn

Interscholastic League of Honolulu all-star honors in football, basketball (center) and baseball (pitcher, first baseman). "He was just good in whatever he did," recalls classmate Pal Eldredge, who played the same sports with Chow. "He just worked hard at it." At 6 feet 2, Chow was Punahou's big man on the basketball court. Just not as tall as some of the Buffanblu opponents, such as Kamehameha,

whieh had 6-7 Rockne Freitas and 6-6 Martin Hess. "He didn't back down to anybody," said Chris MeLaehlin, also a classmate. "He could move a lot of people out. He was a good

rebounder." Eldredge and MeLaehlin, who returned to their alma mater and heeame successful coaches themselves, are not surprised their classmate landed the head coaching job at UH. They are surprised it took nearly four decades before Chow got a shot. "I'm glad when it finally happened, it happened in his home state," MeLaehlin said. Characteristics of Chow's upbringing will be evident on the Warriors' football team, whieh opens training eamp Aug. 1. "They're going to be disciplined," Eldredge said. "They're going to be prepared. Those little things ean set a team ahead of another team." And in the job, Chow will brin2 humilitv.

"He very quietly went about getting his Ph.D. in education," MeLaehlin said. "Yet, he never called himself 'Dr. Chow' or anything like that. He was very unassuming that way. Very humhle." For Chow, coaching was not part of the grand scheme of his life after earning his master's degree fromthe University of Utah, where he was an all-Western Athletic Conference lineman during his undergraduate years. After three years teaching and coaching at Waialua, he took a graduate assistant job for head eoaeh LaVell Edwards at BYU - his first collegiate coaching job - so that his wife, Diane, who is from Utah, could tend to her ailing father. While earning his doctorate in education psychology, he eventually worked his way to full-time assistant and eventually offensive coordinator at B YU. Yet, despite some early success at B YU, Chow never really looked at other opportunities. Besides, BYU was conducive for family life. "I never intended to do this

(coaching) my whole life," Chow said. "BYU was a little different. You didn't have to worklong, laborious hours. (Edwards) made sure our families were OK. I've never been a guy wondering what's my next job. I was taught to work as hard as you ean in the job you have. That's all I did." Before Edwards retired after the 2000 season, opportunities opened for Chow, who went on be offensive coordinator at North Carolina State (2000), Southern California (2001 to 2004), the NFL Titans (2005 to 2007), UCLA (2008 to 2010) and Utah (2011). Despite his feelings after his first interview for the UH job that eventually went to June Jones, Chow said he harbored no ill will toward the university. "It was no big deal," he said. "I don't like being used. A lot of times I was interviewed (for mainland jobs) when they needed a minority candidate to satisfy that rule (the NFL's Rooney Rule that recommends minorities to be interviewed for head coaching jobs). Even if it were (sincere), I'm not sure it would've been the right time, whether we'd accept, because I wanted a taste of the NFL. I wanted to go back East. That's what I needed." Still, this is Chow's first job as head eoaeh. Although he held titles as assistant head eoaeh/ offensive coordinator at BYU, now he's responsible for the whole program and an entire game plan. He is confident of the staff he has assembled. "I don't know how I'll react on Saturday afternoons," Chow admitted. "I've always been blessed to have half the team to be concerned about. When we (were on defense), I could catch my breath and try to figure things out ... you have to think about the kicking game, the flow of the game. But I do know I have lot of help, good, solid help." ■ Stacy Kaneshiro covered sports for the Honolulu Advertiser for 19 '/2 years and has been published in US A Today and Baseball America.

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Brigham Young University head eoaeh LaVell Edwards, kneeling at center, hired Norm Chow from Waialua High, marking Chow's entry into collegiate coaching. This 1 978 picture of the BYU coaches shows Chow standing second from left. - Courtesy: ByMarkA. Philbrick/BYU

Punahou basketball's 1 964 ehampionship team, including Coach Bud Scott, left, and team captain Norm Chow, second from right. - Courtesy: Punahou School