Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 40, Number 7, 1 July 2023 — Hawaiian National Soccer Team to Compete Internationally [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hawaiian National Soccer Team to Compete Internationally

By Ed McLaurin Vernon Kapua'ala has played soccer for most of his life. He started playing the game at the age of 6 and continued on to play high school and collegiate soccer. After getting married and having children, Kapua'ala heeame a dedicated "soccer dad" and started coaching both club and high school soccer. For years, Kapua'ala has been running soccer leagues and tournaments on his home island of Maui and getting scouts to look at loeal players for U.S. national teams. In his down time, he watched international professional soccer games and was taken by the pregame ritual of players singing their national anthem and saluting their natinn's Aap'.

He envisioned Hawai'i sports teams singing Hawai'i Pono'ī as their national anthem instead of The Star-Spangled Banner and flying the Hawaiian flag as their nation's flag rather than as a state flag. Kapua'ala said that growing up he never really connected with his culture and history - but after hearing a lecture about the illegal overthrow and occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, he began to see Hawai'i as a nation. And that started him thinking

that maybe he could establish a federation of Hawaiian soccer teams to represent Hawai'i as a nation on an international level. In a 2020 interview published by the Amenean Pyramid, Kapua'ala talked about his path to understanding that he was not just ethnically Hawaiian, but a Hawaiian national. He said he realized "that my country's international identity and my nationality has been preserved and remains intact," and saw that his kuleana to the lāhui could be realized through Hawaiian national football teams. 'Athletes represent Hawai'i [internationally] in surfing and eanoe paddling, why not in soccer? What makes it a Hawaiian sport is who we are and how we play it," Kapua'ala said. Kapua'ala and his wife, Trisha, founded Hui Kanaka Pōwāwae, the Hawaiian Football Federation (HFF) as a nonprofit organization. In most countries, soccer is known as "football." Ihen they established a board of directors for the nonprofit and scouted 'Ōiwi high school soccer players from across Hawai'i to create the first-ever Hawaiian National Teams (Nā 'Ālapa Hawai'i). In addition to the rigorous training and conditioning required of all serious athletes, players with Nā 'Ālapa Hawai'i are also immersed in Hawaiian language, culture and history.

More than just developing athletic prowess, Hui Kanaka Pōwāwae has a mission to improve resiliency and the overall wellbeing of Native Hawaiians. Their website states that "Through our National Team Program, we are working to produce meaningful impacts on the physical, emotional, and mental health of our players, their families, and the Native Hawaiian community at large - by creating a space where Hawaiian National Identity ean be recovered, reclaimed, reconstructed, eolleetively expressed and shared." "Māori Football has been doing it since 2016," Kapua'ala said. "Kids might be aboriginal, but may not be [culturally] connected otherwise. We're building the connection." Through HFF, Native Hawaiian soccer players are able to represent their native land and eompete internationally under their own flag. HFF has four teams (male and female, under-16 and under-18) with 20 players per team that were selected ffom a pool of nearly 300 Native Hawaiian soccer players. HFF hopes to form adult men's and women's teams in the near future. Hui Kanaka Pōwāwae has also created and maintains a database of Native Hawaiian soccer players from within Hawai'i as well as Hawaiian players who live outside of Hawai'i.

There is no cost to players to be a part of HFF. Trisha Kapua'ala writes grants to obtain hnaneial support for the program, and the players themselves help with fundraising online. Hui Kanaka Pōwāwae is run by volunteers with just one paid staff member, Ian Mork, who is the program's technical director. In May 2022, HFF announced a formal partnership with Māori Football Aotearoa for the purpose of eompetition and cultural reciprocation between Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Hawai'i. In November 2022, Hui Kanaka Pōwāwae announced that 38 players from the islands of Maui, Kaua'i, O'ahu and Hawai'i, had been selected to represent Hawai'i in international competition in Aotearoa in July 2023. In preparation for their first international competition, in early June HFF held training camps on O'ahu for

their players. The men's U-18 and women's U-18 Hawaiian National Teams will tour Aotearoa from July 17-27 to compete in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) and in Kaikohe to the north. While there, the players will attend a match of the International Federation of Association Football Women's World Cup scheduled for July 20 to Aug. 20 in Aotearoa and Australia. And in 2024, HFF will host Māori Football Aotearoa here in Hawai'i. Kapua'ala believes that Hawaiian athletes will heeome modern symbols of national pride. And when Kapua'ala talks about building a "national team" he emphasizes that it is about nationality, not race. "We're not politieal," he said. "1his is a patriotic exercise." ■ For more information go to: https://hawaiianfootball.com/.

Hui Kanakū PōwOwae President and CE0 Vernon Kapua'ala. - Courtesy Photo

The first-ever Hawaiian Nahonal Football (soccer) Teoms will represent Howoi'i ot on internotionol eompetition in Aoteoroo (New Zeolond) this month. The women's U-18 ond men's U-18 teoms (pictured o_bove) ore o port of Hui Konoko Pōwōwoe - the Howoiion Footboll Federotion. It is the world's first oll'Oiwi soccer dub. They represent the Notion of Howoi'i ond exclusively ploy under the Howoiion flog. - Photos: Kāhealani Hiraishi