In mid-June, Waianae football coach Mike Fanoga told athletic director Kekoa Kaluhiokalani that he would be leaving his post to coach at a college in Florida.
There wasn’t time for a full replacement search, and so Kaluhiokalani stayed in-house by promoting junior varsity head coach Matt Murakawa to interim varsity head coach for one year.
Matt Murakawa played linebacker for Waianae coach Larry
Ginoza in the late 1970s. (Image credit: Matt Murakawa).
Murakawa, a 1980 Waianae alumnus, is also the head wrestling coach and a math teacher at the school. He takes over a Seariders football program that went 1-8 in each of the last two seasons (2018, 2019) in the OIA Open Division.
Fanoga spent one full season as the head coach, in 2019, after he was hired to replace Walter Young.
“We’re getting excited over here,” Kaluhiokalani told Bedrock Sports Hawaii on Tuesday. “Coach Matt knows the Waianae ways and he’s working with the staff that’s already in place. He’s going to do well. He communicates well and he understands the pride and tradition we have here.
“Mike (Fanoga) got an opportunity to coach in Florida. It was a hard decision for him. But we understand and we wish him the best of luck in the future.”
As a linebacker for coach Larry Ginzoa, Murakawa was part of the Searaiders’ Oahu Prep Bowl championship team in 1978. The next year, when Murakawa was a senior, Waianae got to the OIA title game, but lost to eventual Prep Bowl champion Kaiser in the league championship game.
“Teaching and coaching, that’s what my passion is,” said Murakawa, who is a graduate of Seattle University and who got his masters in teaching at Chaminade.
Prior to becoming a teacher, Murakawa was in the business world, working for Waterhouse, Inc., in Honolulu.
“The business stuff, that all makes sense to me, but I didn’t know if I loved to do it,” he said. “Now that I teach and coach for a living, it feels like I don’t even work. It feels like it’s something (in retrospect) that I always wanted to do.”
Murakawa admitted that when a half-dozen career aptitude tests he took back in the day came up “engineering or medical or business,” he often wondered how he could get the result to change to teaching.
He knows he’ll be challenged as the head coach of the team that is the pride of Waianae.
“At the JV level, things were relatively simple,” Murakawa said. “In varsity, things are five times more complex. I want to focus on core values, the kinds of things that I took away from the program. It’s about being disciplined, hard working, having a positive attitude, being respectful and humble. That stuff will last them a lifetime. It will make people that are mentally tough and resilient and who can overcome stuff. The football part will always take care of itself. People out here naturally play football. We just need to put them the in right place so they can be successful.”
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Murakawa said about 60 varsity players and around 55 JV players have been showing up for summer conditioning, but he expects that number to rise.
Murakawa will be trying to lead Waianae to its first season since 2017, when the Searaiders went 7-5 and lost a tight one, 10-7, to Kahuku in the first round of the Open Division state tournament under Young.
The year before, in 2016, Waianae went 9-5 and made it all the way to the state semifinals before losing to eventual Open champion Saint Louis.
The coaching change is the 17th in Hawaii high school football since November 2019. All of the changes are listed below:
17 Hawaii High School Football Coaching Changes Since November 2019
>> CASTLE: Junior Pale, interim, in; John Hao out
>> HILO (a): Lave Suiaunoa in; Kaeo Drummondo out
>> HILO (b): Chris Todd in; Lave Suiaunoa out
>> KALAHEO: Nelson Maeda in; Darrell Poole out
>> KEAAU: Ian Van Cleave in; Leo Abellera out
>> KAMEHAMEHA-HAWAII: Kealoha Wengler in; Shaun Perry out
>> KAPAA: Mike Tresler in; Philip Rapozo out
>> KOHALA: Jay Blanco in; Chad Atkins out
>> MAUI: Robert Dougherty in; Rodney Figueroa out
>> McKINLEY: Kale Ane in; Pat Silva out
>> MOANALUA: Vince Nihipali in; Savaii Eselu out
>> PAC-FIVE: Kena Heffernan in; Kip Botelho out
>> PUNAHOU (a): Leonard Lau in; Kale Ane out
>> PUNAHOU (b): Nate Kia in; Leonard Lau out
>> SAINT LOUIS: Ron Lee in; Cal Lee out
>> WAIALUA: Gary Wirtz in; Lincoln Barit out
>> WAIANAE: Matt Murakawa in: Mike Fanoga out
