Saints Rookie LB Kikaha Beats The Odds

I know its long but its worth the read.....



In Hawaiian, the name “Hau’oli” means “happy”. And that’s exactly what 22-year old new Saints rookie Edge rusher / OLB Hau’oli Kikaha is these days: happy –- happy to be the newest member of the New Orleans Saints, and happy to still be playing the sport of football, PERIOD.

For anyone that personally knows Hau’oli Kikaha (pronounced Ha-OH-lee KEY-ka-ha), he often smiles while making a hand gesture popular in Hawaiian culture with his thumbs and pinkies in his native Shaka that means “Hang loose.”

And ‘hang loose’ is exactly what he had to do while waiting nearly two years from his last college start to his next one, after suffering two ACL tears to the same knee (his left one) in a two-year span.

But it speaks to the perseverance, the heart, and the never-say-die attitude that Kikaha possesses; that he was able to come back and beat the odds — re-emerging as the NCAA leader in sacks in 2014 and one become one of the most feared edge rushers at the FBS / Division I level.

Kikaha had an NCAA-leading 19 sacks in 2014, including a 14-game stretch in which he had at least one sack. He had 36 career sacks and was the program’s first consensus All-American in 17 years as a senior.

Kikaha also was a finalist for the Butkus Award (best linebacker) and Lombardi Award (top lineman or linebacker) in addition to being All-Pac-12.

The Saints made Kikaha the newest member of their linebacking corps Friday night, selecting the young Hawaiian super-star with the 44th overall pick in the 2nd round of the 2015 NFL Draft.

Kikaha actually knew that he liked the Saints as soon as he met with the team’s staff in one of the private meeting rooms at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis back in February.

Kikaha told NOLA.com’s Saints beat writer Kat Terrell that he “felt like the Saints’ coaches were genuine and were people he could see himself being around”. He’ll fit right in with the Saints, who now have three native Hawaiians on the team: Kikaha, center Max Unger and guard Senio Kelemete, who is his old friend and a former teammate at Washington.

Ironically, Kikaha ended up doing some extensive training and workout sessions with former Saints linebacker Scott Shanle, who told Saints LB coach Joe Vitt about the talented young man — but Vitt had ALREADY known all about him from the Combine.

That’s because Vitt and the Saints staff were familiar with Kikaha after his brilliant “break-out” senior year, and despite some lingering concerns by many scouts and draft analysts who worry that the knee isn’t fully healed (though it would certainly appear to be), pulled the trigger at the #44th spot in Round 2 when they realized he was still there.

That was over two other noted edge-rushers still available on the Board, that’s how strongly Saints brass felt about Kikaha, and as I mentioned a few days ago, I believe the Saints’ faith in him will ultimately determine the overall success or failure of this Saints draft class.

That observation is based on the investment they’ve put in the hope that he is the player again that he was before the injuries — which based on his back-to-back performances in 2013 and 2014, appears to be the case.

They also are invested in him because of his outstanding character: he earned an Ethnic Studies degree with a minor in Anthropology, a 3.5 grade-point average and made the University of Washington’s Dean’s list each year that he was enrolled there.

As it is, Kikaha’s journey to the NFL is a compelling one.

Kikaha was actually born Hau’loi Jamora, but dropped the last name of his given name from his father — who he didn’t see again from the time that he was 1½ years old until he was 16. The last name ‘Kikaha” is from a Great Grandmother on his Mom’s side, which he legally had changed in 2013.

His mother Dawn, a single parent, then took him and his two older brothers from his native Oahu to Ohio, then back to Hawaii, then to Texas, back to Hawaii, then to four different areas of southern California – all while searching for work in her career field, in an effort to create a better life for her family.

As the family went from workplace to workplace, from the islands to the mainland to the Midwest to the Southwest and from job to job, Hau’oli’s two brothers chipped in raising him. Older brothers Kila and Kahiapo are four and five years older than he is.

Dawn would eventually re-settle back in the islands for good in Hau’oli’s freshman year, and for a year they lived in Pearl City, on the west side of Oahu.

Hau’oli went to go live with his grandmother in Laie, about an hour’s drive up the coast from Honolulu on Oahu’s North Shore.

He went to Kahuku High School, where he quickly became the state’s defensive player of the year in 2009.That was just three years after he only just began even playing the sport itself in 2006.

He actually didn’t start playing the sport of football until that freshman year of ‘06, which just happened to be the exact same year he took up his other favorite contact sports at the time: judo and wrestling.

Former Huskies coach (and now current USC head coach) Steve Sarkisian recently said in an interview that from the first day he and his staff met Kikaha on a recruiting trip to Hawai’i six years ago in late 2009, they wanted him in their program — anywhere.He was that good.

Still known as Hau’oli Jamora in his freshman year of 2010, he started the final seven games that season; recording one sack and 3.5 tackles for loss in Washington’s Holiday Bowl victory over Nebraska. The future was indeed bright at that point.

Then, in the Huskies’ Pac-12 Conference opener against California in late September 2011, disaster struck: he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Eager to get back on the field, he rushed his rehabilitation, then tore the same ligament while covering TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins on a wheel route during the first week of training camp in August 2012.

Kikaha told ESPN last year that he might have chosen the wrong surgical graft in his first ACL repair, causing a relapse of the surgically repaired knee in that very practice only seven months later.

On Aug. 30, 2012, Kikaha had the surgical procedure done this time by Dr. Edward Khalfayan, a team orthopedic surgeon and head physician for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and the medical director for baseball’s Seattle Mariners who consults with Husky athletics.

The surgery was a success, and Kikaha had to endure nine more months of intense rehab of two- and three-a-days inside the Huskies training room — while his teammates were going to another bowl game.But it paid off.

He bounced back in 2013 with seemingly no ill effects, and finished among the Pac-12 leaders in sacks (13), also leading the Huskies in tackles for loss (15.5) and forced fumbles (3).

That of course was followed by last year’s huge performance, and now Kikaha finds himself in the NFL, in a Black and Gold uniform.

There are so many things to like about this young man, that you can’t help but root for him to be a huge success on a personal level, and not only just based on the fact that he is a player that the Saints are hoping will make a significant contribution in helping to improve their defense in 2015.

He has a never-say-die attitude, and he has the desire to be GREAT —— and that’s the best thing that could ever happen for the young man named “happy” in his native tongue.

In the long run, it will be the Saints and their fans who will be happy the most, that Hau’oli Kikaha has beaten the odds………

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