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| Kai Bookland's home in Lahaina, Hawai’i, was at the center of the West Maui fires last month. Pacific athletics photo by Aaron Brewer |
By Greg Thomas
D3sports.com
In Division III, one might often hear references made to "island teams" or "island conferences." It’s a figurative phrase we use to talk about teams and conferences that aren’t really within convenient driving distance to other schools or conferences.
Pacific University belongs to one such island conference, but Pacific’s connection to America’s literal islands is unique. Nearly one in five incoming students at Pacific matriculate from Hawai’i. Indeed, nearly one third of Pacific’s football roster hails from the Aloha State. Longtime followers of Division III football will no doubt remember that Pacifc won the very first Division III football game played in Hawai’i.
Despite being separated by roughly 2,500 miles of the Pacific Ocean, the wildfires that devastated West Maui on Aug. 8 felt very close to home for Pacific University.
Pacific’s relationship with Hawai’i is something that has been built over decades. Of the Hawaiian influence on Pacific’s campus, coach Ian Falconer told Around the Nation, “It’s a huge part of the identity of the university, especially the undergraduate population.
"It was a tradition kind of steadily built over time with just pretty earnest recruitment efforts of sending admissions counselors to go and speak with students and families in Hawai’i.”
Those efforts have paid off with a pipeline of undergraduate students and student-athletes who have become an embedded part of the campus culture. Falconer said: “It's a big, big part of who we are. We have about 50-plus young men from Hawai’i on our team. It fits really well with programmatically, what we talk about in the concept of family and sort of chosen family, which is a lot of how people refer to ‘Ohana'.”
Pacific’s recruiting efforts in Hawai’i have been so successful for so long, that Falconer finds many recruits from the islands either have already received some background from Pacific alums in their communities or can be quickly connected to Pacific alums.
“Now it's just generational,” he said. “Maybe their mentee went here or their chemistry teacher graduated from here. The lady who cuts their hair's daughter is going to school here now. It's just so funny – when you start asking recruits questions, they're very aware of who we are.”
The Pacific University football ‘ohana' came together for the 2023 season the day before the fires reached and devastated the historic beachfront town of Lahaina on the island of Maui. On check-in day, Falconer got reports of what was happening overnight on Maui and the immediate focus of camp shifted from family dropoffs and equipment checkout to making sure his student-athletes and their families were safe. “It was like, just clear the decks. Football is a secondary thing,” said Falconer. “What do these families need? But kind of in an interesting way, and, that's sort of the power of sport or the power of football, is that once these families knew sort of that their primary families and even their residences were okay, They really wanted to focus on camp and their kid being in camp.”
Thankfully most Pacific players from Maui got through the fires without losing homes or immediate family. Junior wide receiver Kai Bookland, a native of Lahaina, was not as fortunate. Having just arrived in Forest Grove, Oregon, the day before the fire spread to Lahaina, Bookland lost contact with his mother for about 24 hours. Once reconnected, Bookland learned that his mother was ok, but unfortunately their home had been lost.
“We didn't hear from my mom for almost 24 hours there,” Bookland recalled. “We didn't know if she was okay or not. So it was a tough few days at first, for sure, to just kind of process it and trying to make sure everyone was okay.”
Bookland traveled back to Lahaina on Friday after the fire to connect with family and his community. “It was emotional, super emotional,” Bookland said of his reunion. “Just seeing everyone again for the first time, you didn't know if you were going to see them again, family and friends alike. Everyone, just like us, we lost everything. Not just our family, but everyone else in all of Lahaina lost everything. So I think just to have that connection again and be able to talk a little bit and share a couple smiles was really, really important at that time.”
Upon his return to Forest Grove, Bookland’s support from his team and campus community have been a source of strength. “It’s been unbelievable. As soon as it happened, everyone was reaching out, texting, asking what they can do to help out, asking if I was okay, if my family was okay. Everyone from the coaching staff to a bunch of the players. My phone was blowing up all the time. Not just on that day, but for days and weeks after people still come up to me and ask, are you okay?”
That support has made Bookland’s return to team activities smooth. “It's just super, super supportive,” Bookland stated. “That's what made me feel comfortable to come back here and kind of give football and school my all again, just because I knew it was going to be really supported by everyone throughout the process.”
Bookland’s experience in the last month has altered his perspective on football. “It feels more important to me, honestly. And I've always loved football,” Bookland said. “It's always been one of the things that is what I want to do in my life. I want to get into coaching after this. So football is a huge part of my life. But now it feels a little more important.”
Football is not just important for Bookland personally, but the return of Pacific football is a welcome weekly event for those Pacific families and alumni that live on Maui. “One of the things my mom said to me, right as I was leaving to come back [to Pacific], was ‘We need a distraction. We need to watch you on Saturday,’ ” Bookland recalled his mother’s words. “‘We need something to distract us and give us hope. That’s what you need to do for us.’ Okay, that gives me a little more motivation. It makes it a little more important.”
ʻA ʻohe hana nui ke alu ʻia is an Hawai’ian saying that means no task is too big when done together by all. It’s a saying that’s certainly applicable to football teams all across the division, preparing for each of the next ten weeks to compete and win games. It’s a saying that applies to the familial support structures that teams and teammates provide to one another every day. And it’s a saying that applies to the people of Lahaina as they begin the long rebuilding process. As Hawai’i has supported Pacific University, Boxer football will no doubt do their part on Saturdays this fall to support their ‘ohana on Lahaina.
How to help
Around The Nation extends our gratitude to Kai Bookland for sharing his experience over the last month with us for this column. I also want to take a moment to acknowledge student-athletes and coaches who are from Maui and affected by this tragedy at other Division III institutions as well. Around The Nation readers can help the recovery efforts in Maui by donating to the Maui Strong Fund here:
https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/strengthening/maui-strong-fund
Pacific University has also created an emergency fund for their affected students:
These fundraising efforts are important and will help Lahaina during this recovery, but the support needed will extend well beyond this initial burst of donations and fundraising. Bookland poignantly told Around The Nation that one of the very best things our readers can do is to simply not forget about what has happened in Lahaina. “I think just keeping Lahaina in everyone's thoughts and not letting people forget about Lahaina. Because it's not going to be a quick rebuild, it's going to take years. Keeping it in the news and in people's thoughts and mind is really important.”
Top 25 talk
One might expect a lot of volatility between the preseason Top 25 and the Week 1 Top 25. After all, there will be no weeks for the rest of the season where we gain more new, concrete information than between the preseason poll- an amalgamation of voters’ perception of how much young teams might mature over an offseason, the impact of transfers (in or out), and general faith in programs- and the end of Week 1 where we’ve had an opportunity to see the product on the field. In this Week 1 poll, however, the same 25 teams that were ranked three weeks ago are ranked now.
Even still, there was some significant movement in the poll. The farthest fall this week was Delaware Valley’s 14 spot tumble to number 24. A national quarterfinal host one year ago, the Aggies had certainly built a good deal of polling capital. Heavy graduation losses to the Del Val defense were very visible in their 42-13 defeat at Cortland in Week 1. Indeed, Del Val dropped from my ballot (from 14 on my preseason submission). The Aggies may well still be the best team in the MAC and even Region 1, but they’ll have some rebuilding to do to reach the rarified top 10 air again.
The week’s big riser is, not surprisingly, UW-River Falls. The Falcons dismantling of the formerly third-ranked UMHB resulted in a 14-spot rocket boost into the top 10 of the poll. It may have been tempting for voters to see the litany of Crusader miscues in this game and dilute the degree of dominance UW-River Falls displayed- but the D3football.com voters were not seduced by a ‘UMHB beat themselves’ storyline and treated the Falcons with respect one earns with a lopsided win over one of the premiere teams in the Division. The Falcons moved from 16 to 10 on my ballot.
Speaking of the WIAC, four teams remain ranked, the fifth team receiving votes hung 80 on their Week 1 opponent. If you were worried about the WIAC being on shaky ground after last season’s first round exits by UW-Whitewater and UW-La Crosse, don’t be. These teams are just fine. My top three ranked WIAC teams are UW-Oshkosh, UW-Whitewater, and UW-River Falls, all nestled in the 8-9-10 spots. I’m bullish on Oshkosh this season and wanted to give the Titans a chance to impress as their top 10-ranked counterparts did in Week 1 before reassessing the order of these teams.
On tap
Week 2 matches Week 1 with five more matchups between ranked teams, but this week we’re treated to the added tension of teams trying to avoid 0-2 starts, teams playing to gain massive advantages in regional pecking orders, and multiple ranked teams making their season debuts. We’ll have coverage of all of the big Week 2 storylines. Here’s what you can watch for every week at D3football.com:
Tomorrow: Quick Hits featuring our panel’s predictions and insights into this weekend’s games
Saturday: Game day. The D3football.com Scoreboard has all of your links for stats and broadcasts.
Sunday: New Top 25 poll
Monday: Around The Nation podcast. Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas recap the weekend that was and preview the weekend to come in Division III football.
Tuesday/Wednesday: Team of the Week honors, features columns
Thursday: Around the Nation column
I’d Like To Thank…
Special thanks this week to Kai Bookland and Ian Falconer for spending time with Around The Nation this week. Additional thanks to Pacific Sports Information Director Derek Wiley for coordinating our conversations!
Read options?
There’s nothing small about small college football. Division III is home to 241 teams, and many thousands of student-athletes and coaches. There are so many more stories out there than I can find on my own. Please share your stories that make Division III football so special for all of us! Reach out to me at greg.thomas@d3sports.com or on Twitter @wallywabash to share your stories.
