Kilauea's Effect on Sporting Life for Sports Illustrated

Client: Sports Illustrated

Editor: Erick Rasco

Location: Puna, Hawaiʻi

Being based on the continent for ten years now, I have never been sent by a client to my hometown of HIlo, Hawaiʻi. I've been sent to Maui and Oʻahu many times, but never home home. It was bittersweet to be assigned by Sports Illustrated for a very brief trip to document the affects on sporting life by Kīlauea's most recent outbreak in lower Puna where I grew up.

On the Big Island, there is definitely the western sporting life with stick and ball sports such as basketball, golf, football, baseball. Thankfully schools have wound down for the summer. But the HiLyfe basketball team competes year round and was displaced from their normal practice facility at Pahoa High School gym which was converted to the emergency relief center when the eruption began. They now practice at Panaewa Gym, forcing the players to commute all the way from Puna.

I also visited Volcano Golf Course which is right next to Halemaʻumaʻu crater. Fortunately/unfortunately, there were no enormous explosions or ash clouds like those that had happened earlier with the eruption, so the visual impact wasn't as great.

My assignment was to also illustrate the Hawaiian sportsman's life: fishing, hunting, and diving. While many do it for the athletic qualities that make any sport enjoyable, many still partake in these activities to provide food for their ʻohana (families) and community. With many natural resources in jeopardy due to the eruption, the impact on these sportsmen and the community at large could be generational.

I grew up with my friend Eli Kipiliʻi in Puna. His father, Uncle Obed, taught my father to fish down in Kapoho, and that's also where I learned how to fish, dive, and surf as a boy. I spent a large majority of my childhood there; my father would often wake me up hours past my bedtime on school nights to go meet the uncles down there to go fishing. It is where some of the best memories of my life were made. Generations of Native Hawaiians and locals have gathered fish in Kapoho, and just a few miles down the coast is Pohoiki, the home break of many surfers in Puna. The lava flows have now entered the ocean just south of Pohoiki, closing the beach indefinitely, and Kapoho could be taken at any point.

Standing there as day turned to night, as the glow of the eruption lit up the sky like the most brilliant sunrise or sunset, it was bittersweet knowing that I got to visit Kapoho for possibly the last time with my childhood friend, doing what we did as keiki (children), as he shared and taught his own keiki, just as it had been for us.

Mahalo to Erick Rasco, the Yamada ʻohana & HiLyfe Basketball, Braddah Ken & Volcano Golf Course, Uncle Hatada, and the Kipiliʻi ʻohana.

Aloha,

JSNM