Finally back on campus, Lahainaluna prepares to celebrate homecoming | News, Sports, Jobs

Lahainaluna High School’s Sue Cooley Stadium features bright new turf and track Wednesday afternoon as preparations continue for Saturday’s first home football game of the season. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos

LAHAINA — As Jonathan Conrad took a rare break on Wednesday at Sue Cooley Stadium, he shook his head as he sat in his golf cart, enjoying the shade behind the press box.

The Lahainaluna High School athletic director was thankful that the day he has been working towards since Aug. 8 has nearly arrived. It was that day a little more than two months ago that wildfire ravaged the town below.

The Lunas will celebrate a homecoming like no other in the 192-year history of the oldest school west of the Rocky Mountains on Saturday night when Baldwin comes calling.

The game sold out online in seven minutes on Wednesday, making it the fourth sellout in the Lunas’ four games in this delayed season. The 3,000 fans will be treated to the unveiling of a $2.8 million artificial turf field and a $250,000 scoreboard — the turf is a state-funded project, the scoreboard was paid for by the Lahainaluna Foundation.

“I’m just glad it’s done and working, to be completely honest,” Conrad said. “A lot of anticipation for all this to be completed in time for us to actually have games and now that it’s 98 percent done, it feels pretty good, starting to check things off the list.”

The new scoreboard at Sue Cooley Stadium has a trial run Wednesday afternoon.

The month-long sojourn to Kihei for school — and athletics — at Kulanihako’i High School ended this week. The commuting regimen for Conrad had included starting his days at home in Wailuku, driving to Maui High to pick up deliveries or paperwork, to campus in Lahaina and then most days to Kihei before going home.

Conrad put more than 6,000 miles on his 2020 Honda Accord in 45 days.

There were four shipping containers of football equipment that were moved back and forth from the Lahaina campus to South Maui Community Park, where the team worked out for five weeks — much of that commuting was done pickup truck by pickup truck, coordinated by Conrad.

“Everyone’s done a great job, it’s obviously been a great job from the administration to the league and all the participants in the league — Maui High, Baldwin, Kamehameha (Maui) and King Kekaulike, even though we haven’t played them — they’ve all been extremely supportive,” Conrad said.

The final walkthrough to approve the field was done Wednesday.

“Again, another checklist box to check off is really nice,” Conrad said.

To get to this point has been the biggest test of his 25-year career at Lahainaluna that began as an athletic trainer. Last week, he worked 99 hours, and this week he expects to work more than 100.

“Challenging is not even the word,” Conrad said. “I would say that it’s been really hard because I listen a lot and I hear a lot of stories, but it’s more hours than I’ve ever worked in my life. It’s on a different level than COVID because COVID was sort of universal and everyone was impacted the exact same way.

“And this is impacting everyone in a certain way, but it’s impacting a certain group at an extremely high level and we’re just trying to collectively work through it all together.”

Conrad sometimes has to just laugh at the situation — he took over as Lahainaluna AD 10 days prior to the first home football game after COVID.

“It was actually a little easier when I had to do the commute because no one could find me, now everyone can find me,” he said. “I’m working more now than when I was actually commuting just because putting this home game together and making sure everything is safe and making sure the field’s ready and the parking and the tickets. … So, I started (being AD) with COVID and I’ve just been trying to remain sane.”

Logan Hamocon of Sports Turf Hawaii oversaw the installation of the Act Global turf that has vibrant red that outlines the field and is a big part of the Lahainaluna logo, yellow lines to mark the soccer field dimensions, and green for the field itself.

The field project started in April and had some obvious delays. It also included some drainage issues and resurfacing of the four-lane track that surrounds the field.

“It’s a combination fiber-synthetic turf,” Hamocon said. “We removed the old turf completely, we regraded all that rock (underneath), re-compact, did some new leveling and then we brought this in. We started in April with the demo, we were done by the end of May with turf. Then there was just a long delay for project issues. We had some drainage issues and rain and of course, the high winds and fires.”

It is heartwarming for Hamocon to look at the field and know what will be going on Saturday night.

“I’ve got family out on Maui, I’ve got people who have been affected by the recent events,” Hamocon said. “So, for this to come to full fruition, it’s been an amazing journey.”

Hamocon makes sure to touch base with the people involved in any project, but this one will stay close to his heart.

“The people at Lahainaluna, the AD, the principal, just unbelievable people. They have an amazing booster club and also the coaches, the coaching staff that I met with,” Hamocon said. “Whenever I do a project, and when we leave that project we’re always concerned about how well it’s going to be maintained. It looks like they’re going to take very good care of this. They take a lot of pride into their field and their track and their school in general.”

The scoreboard has capabilities to display on-field video and even instant replays. The hard part now is to learn how to run all the functions, from audio and video displays for scores to putting the live feed of the homecoming court on the video board, is another part of what Conrad is doing this week.

Nevco Sports is the company that supplied the scoreboard and the project engineer is Jason Kendall, who has supervised the installation of the scoreboard for the last week and a half. Kendall has worked for the company for eight years and has overseen the installation of approximately 200 scoreboards.

“Pretty much it’s limitless — you can watch videos on it all the way up to streaming live feed to it,” Kendall said. “Then you can integrate the production of making those videos into the school’s classrooms.”

As Lahainaluna principal Richard Carosso peered over the new-look stadium Wednesday, he allowed himself a little smile. This is his second year on the job and he lives on campus.

“It is bittersweet because while the stadium looks phenomenal and the scoreboard is fantastic and we’re so excited to be able to get that and be able to use it and see how it works, you also have the view of Lahaina town and the impact area,” Carosso said. “So, the two things juxtapose — fills your heart in one moment and breaks your heart in the next.”

Carosso added that school had gone well at the halfway point of the first week back.

“Third day, so far, so good,” Carosso said. “We’ve had lots of kids coming, lots of kids re-registering, coming back to school. It is homecoming week, you know, the Lunas are coming home. It’s better than I could expect, the kids are just being fantastic and respectful and just the great students they’ve always been. So, it’s been a great week for all of us so far.”

* Robert Collias is at [email protected].