Timeline
An entire ocean away from its nearest NCAA opponent, the University of Hawai‘i football program has a unique and storied history. 2017 marks the program’s 101st season of competition.
THE BEGINNING
The College of Hawai‘i was founded in 1907. Two years later, in 1909, the university fielded its first football team. The “Fighting Deans,” as Hawai‘i athletic teams were known then, defeated McKinley High School, 6-5, under head coach Austin Jones in its inaugural game. The historic game was played before 2,500 fans at O‘ahu College, now known as Punahou School.
Because of limited travel opportunities, Hawai‘i only played local high schools, military and club teams for its first eight seasons. In 1920, the College of Hawai‘i became the University of Hawai‘i and Raymond Elliot coached the first intercollegiate game against the University of Nevada (Reno). Nevada outscored Hawai‘i, 14-0, at Moiliili Field on Christmas Day.
A POT OF GOLD
The 1921 season marked the arrival of Otto “Proc” Klum, who ushered in the “Golden Age of UH Football.” Known as the “The Manoa Fox,” Klum served as head coach and athletics director until 1939, compiling an 84-51-7 record.
Klum coached UH to its first victory over a collegiate opponent in 1922, a Christmas Day triumph over Pomona College, 25-6, at Punahou’s Alexander Field. He also took the team to its first road game in 1923 via oceanliner against that same Pomona team at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. The trip took five days. As a result of the prolonged hours of travel, later teams only traveled to the U.S. mainland every other year.
During Klum’s reign, another UH tradition emerged. In the final game of the 1923 season, a rainbow appeared over the gridiron late during the team’s contest against Oregon State. The Deans scored shortly thereafter and held on to win, 7-0. Reporters started calling UH teams the “Rainbows,” and the tradition began that whenever a rainbow appeared from the “Manoa Mist” over the UH campus, Hawai‘i could not lose.
THE WONDER YEARS
Under Klum’s guidance, Hawai‘i produced the “Wonder Teams” of 1924-25, which went undefeated both seasons. The “Wonder Teams” outscored their opponents, 606-29, in 18 games. Among the fallen were Colorado, Colorado State and Washington State.
During the 1924 season, the Rainbows finished 8-0 and allowed only 12 points all season. The team concluded the season with a 13-0 shutout of Colorado on New Year’s Day. The following season, only Washington State, of the Pacific Coast Conference, scored more than six points against the “Wonder Teams” and was only one of five teams to score at all. UH defeated the Cougars, 20-11, on New Year’s Day to close out the 1925 season.
Among the many stars on those teams were the famed “Four Horsemen of Manoa” - Bill “Doggie” Wise, Johnny Morse, Eddie Fernandez and Theodore “Pump” Searle -- named after the gallant Notre Dame backfield.
A NEW HOME
In 1926, the Rainbows made the newly built Honolulu Stadium, a 24,000-seat facility in Moiliili, their homefield. UH played its first game at the stadium on Nov. 11 against the Town Team. Hawai‘i lost that game, 14-7, before 12,000 Armistice Day fans.
That same season, the Rainbows blanked the 8th Field Artillery and Healani by identical 101-0 scores. Against Healani, halfback Fernandez had one of the best single-game performances in UH history, scoring six times on runs, punts and an interception.
Four years later, UH played its first night game at the stadium. The Rainbows defeated the Honolulu Athletic Club, 28-0, Oct. 8, 1930, before 9,500 fans.
For 48 years, the affectionately nicknamed “Termite Palace” housed the Rainbows and their fans until the construction of Aloha Stadium in 1975.
THE GRASS SHACK
One of the earliest stars in UH history was Thomas Kaulukukui, a 5-foot-5, 140-pound back from Hilo. As a member of UH’s undefeated 1934 team, Kaulukukui helped lead the Rainbows to a 14-0 shutout of California in the New Year’s Day Classic (later re-named the Poi Bowl). That team finished 6-0 and featured stars Maynard “Buster” Piltz and Anthony Morse.
The next year, Kaulukukui gained national fame and earned his nickname, the “Grass Shack,” by legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice. During a 19-6 loss to UCLA at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Kaulukukui scored the team’s lone touchdown, an electrifying 103-yard kickoff return, a record which still stands today.
Following that season, Kaulukukui became UH’s first All-American when he was selected by the All-America Board of Football, which included legendary Glenn “Pop” Warner.
WAR TIME ERA
The 1940 season marked the end of Klum’s 19-year tenure as football coach. The decade was also marred by World War II.
In 1941, the Rainbows just completed a 20-6 Shrine Game victory over Willamette, in front of a sold-out Honolulu Stadium crowd of 24,000. The next morning, Japan invaded Pearl Harbor, resulting in the cancellation of the team’s upcoming game against San Jose State and the 1942-45 seasons. Lost in the news of the attack was the naming of halfback Nolle Smith as a first-team Associated Press Little All-American.
UH returned to the gridiron in 1946 after the conclusion of the war. That same year also marked the program’s entrance into the NCAA under head coach Kaulukukui. Hawai‘i finished the season with an 8-2 record, culminating with a 19-16 victory over Utah in the Pineapple Bowl (formerly Poi Bowl).
In the late 1940s, the team began to travel by air, making the journey to the West Coast in an unheard-of nine hours. To cut down on costs, the teams stayed on the U.S. mainland for at least two weeks at a time.
Following the 1949 season, Harry “Clown” Kahuanui became the first UH player to be invited to the East-West Shrine Game and was named an honorable mention All-American by United Press International.
Kaulukukui coached until 1951 and accumulated a record of 34-18-3, becoming one of the school’s winningest coaches at the time. As a result of his achievements as a player and coach, he was chosen as a charter member of the National Football Hall of Fame Association.
HAMMERIN’ HANK
The 1950s marked the arrival of the Hank Vasconcellos era as head coach and athletics director. Vasconcellos, a Maui native, coached the Rainbows for nine seasons during the program’s highest and lowest moments.
The 1954 season ended with a humbling 50-0 loss to Orange Bowl-bound Nebraska in front of a crowd of 20,000 fans at Honolulu Stadium.
In the rematch between the schools the next season, the Rainbows pulled off one of the biggest wins in the program’s history before a crowd of 23,000 at Nebraska Stadium. As 40-point underdogs, the 27-member team won in Lincoln’s 95-degree heat and 26 mile-per-hour winds. Of the 11 starters, seven played the entire 60 minutes, including star back Skippy Dyer, who broke up a Cornhusker pass on UH’s 10-yard line with less than two minutes to play.
Despite a 34-0 shutout loss to San Jose State the next week, the Rainbows went on to finish with a 7-4 record and followed that season with a respectable 7-3 mark in 1956.
But only six years after that infamous victory over Nebraska and three consecutive losing seasons, the UH Board of Athletic Control, made up of faculty, students and alumni members, voted to abolish the football program in 1961 due to lack of finances.
ROCKY ROAD
Football returned to intercollegiate competition in 1962 behind the urging of new athletics director Young Suk Ko. The program went through five coaches in the decade, including former player Jim Asato and offensive guru Clark Shaughnessy, who led Stanford to a Rose Bowl victory.
After Shaughnessy’s one-year “consultant” term concluded, the program went through turmoil with the firing of Ko and surprise hiring of Phil Sarboe as head coach. Sarboe coached for one year before bolting for northern California following the 1966 season, UH’s first all-collegiate schedule. Sarboe’s top assistant, Don King, took over for one year but quit after a 6-4 season amid tension with athletics director Bob Martin.
THE MODERN ERA
The arrival of head coach Dave Holmes in 1968 was the beginning of the most successful years in school history. In six years as coach, Holmes guided his teams to a 46-17-1 record, including a pair of nine-win seasons. Holmes still ranks as the all-time leader at UH in winning percentage (.718).
In 1973, Hawai‘i recorded its biggest upset in school history, with a 10-7 road victory over the Pacific-8 Conference’s Washington Huskies, who were favored by as many as 50 points. Harold Stringert intercepted three passes and lineman Levi Stanley had 11 tackles in the victory. The Rainbows won its first eight games that season and was ranked as high as No. 5 in the weekly Division II poll.
But following that season, Holmes resigned due to team turmoil. Larry Price, a former player who served as an assistant to the four previous coaches, was named head coach and served at that capacity for the next three years.
During Price’s tenure, UH became an NCAA Division I member, changed its nickname to the Rainbow Warriors, introduced the “Hula-T” formation, and on Sept. 13, 1975, christened the newly-built 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium against Texas A&I. Hawai‘i lost its stadium debut, 43-9, before 32,247 fans.
NATIONAL EXPOSURE
Dick Tomey, a UCLA assistant who was hired to replace Price, put UH on the national football map. Tomey headed the program from 1977-87. During his tenure, he guided Hawai‘i into the Western Athletic Conference in his third year and drastically upgraded the schedule by playing the likes of Nebraska, Oklahoma, USC, Iowa and Michigan.
In the 1977 season-finale, UH hosted nationally ranked USC, a team which featured Heisman Trophy winner Charles White. A record crowd of 48,767 at Aloha Stadium watched as the Rainbow Warriors nearly pulled off the upset against John Robinson’s Trojans before falling 21-5.
During the third week of the 1984 season, the Rainbow Warriors faced Brigham Young. With just five minutes remaining, UH let a 13-12 lead slip away as the Cougars scored a late touchdown for the victory and later went on the win the national championship that season.
Following the 1986 season, defensive end Al Noga became the first UH player to be named a first team All-American by the Associated Press and was tabbed as the school’s first Heisman Trophy candidate.
TRIPLE THREAT
After Tomey left UH for Arizona of the Pac-10, assistant coach Bob Wagner took over the program and introduced the spread offense or “Triple Option” to Hawai‘i. During his tenure, the offense, which featured two slotbacks and one fullback, frequently placed UH among the top rushing teams in the country.
In the 1988 season-opener, ninth-ranked Iowa came to the islands and the Rainbow Warriors shocked the Hawkeyes, 27-24, behind running back Heikoti Fakava’s three touchdowns. It was also a coming-out party for freshman kicker Jason Elam, who booted two critical field goals in the fourth quarter.
After just two seasons, Wagner was named WAC Coach of the Year and led the Rainbow Warriors to their first major bowl game-- the Jeep Eagle Aloha Bowl. UH fell to Michigan State, 33-13, but following the season, he became the first UH coach to head an all-star team in the Hula Bowl.
In 1992, behind quarterback Michael Carter, Hawai‘i won a share of the WAC championship and posted its first bowl game victory, a 27-17 defeat of Illinois in the Thrifty Car Rental Holiday Bowl. UH finished the season ranked No. 20 and months later, three-time All-American kicker Elam was drafted by the Denver Broncos in the third round.
During Wagner’s nine seasons as head coach, Hawai‘i defeated nationally ranked rival Brigham Young three times, including a 1990 victory on the day quarterback Ty Detmer won the Heisman Trophy. In addition, Carter was one of a handful of quarterbacks in NCAA Division I history to rush and pass for 1,000 yards in the same season.
THE LONGEST YARD
Wagner was fired following consecutive losing seasons and was replaced by Fred vonAppen in 1996. A former assistant coach with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, vonAppen coached three disappointing seasons in which the Rainbow Warriors posted a 5-31 record.
UH lost 10 games in vonAppen’s inaugural season and in 1998, Hawai‘i suffered through a winless 0-12 campaign, a first in the program’s rich history. Following that season, he was replaced by alumnus June Jones, who brought with him the explosive run-and-shoot offense.
Under Jones, UH dropped the “Rainbows” from its nickname and were simply known as the “Warriors” while introducing the new “H” logo that replaced the iconic rainbow logo. The Warriors began using the new nickname and featured the green “H” helmet at the start of the 2000 season.
RUNNIN’-N-SHOOTIN’
It only took one season under Jones’ tutelage for the Hawai‘i football program to return to championship form. Jones, whose run-and-shoot offense he perfected in the NFL, posted a 9-4 record in 1999, the best by a first-year head coach at UH.
Jones and the Warriors made history by recording the NCAA’s best turnaround season (from 0-12 to 9-4). UH finished the season as WAC co-champions and defeated Oregon State, 23-17, in the Jeep O‘ahu Bowl.
In 2001, the Warriors capped off a stellar season by handing Brigham Young a 72-45 romp on national television. Despite a 9-3 record, Hawai‘i was snubbed for a bowl game. Later that year, wide receiver Ashley Lelie became the school’s first-ever first-round draftee, being selected as the 19th overall pick by the Denver Broncos.
Over the next three seasons, Jones led the Warriors to bowl games. After a 10-win season, UH was invited to the inaugural ConAgra Foods Hawai‘i Bowl, where they lost to Tulane of Conference USA, 36-28. The next season, Jones and the Warriors met Houston in the Sheraton Hawai‘i Bowl, a game which UH pulled out, 54-48, in triple-overtime and followed that with a 59-40 rout of UAB in the 2004 Sheraton Hawai‘i Bowl.
Also in 2004, quarterback Timmy Chang became the NCAA all-time passing leader and finished his career with 17,072 passing yards. In 2006, Chang’s successor, Colt Brennan, wins the Sammy Baugh Trophy as the nation’s top quarterback. Brennan led the nation in seven statistical categories and set 19 NCAA records. Brennan and the Warriors garnered their first Top 25 ranking since 1993 and a 41-24 Sheraton Hawai‘i Bowl win over Arizona State.
THE PERFECT SEASON
The next season, Brennan led UH to an undefeated 12-0 regular season and captured the program’s first outright WAC championship with an emphatic win over Boise State. During their stretch run, the Warriors captivated the entire state as fans flocked Aloha Stadium with capacity crowds for the team’s final three home games.
After a come-from-behind win over Washington in the season finale capped UH’s perfect regular season, the Warriors were invited to the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the program’s first-ever BCS bowl appearance. In front of a network audience on FOX, UH fell to third-ranked Georgia, 41-10.
Brennan was invited to New York City as the school’s first Heisman Trophy finalist and finished third in the final voting. At the end of his three-year career, Brennan tied or broke 31 NCAA records and was drafted in the sixth round by the Washington Redskins.
FALL FROM GRACE
Following that record-breaking season, Jones left UH for SMU, which led to the firing the school’s athletics director and an exodus of players including two of the team’s top returning receivers, both of whom declared for the NFL Draft.
However, just weeks after Jones’ departure, defensive coordinator Greg McMackin was named head coach and assembled a staff which included former record-setting quarterback Nick Rolovich as offensive coordinator.
In four seasons, McMackin guided the Warriors to two Sheraton Hawai‘i Bowl appearances, including 10 wins and a share of the WAC Championship in 2010. After a turbulent 2011 season, in which the Warriors were predicted to win the WAC but finished with a 6-7 record, McMackin retired and was replaced by Honolulu-native and longtime assistant coach Norm Chow, who became the first Asian-American head coach of a major college football team.
CHOW TIME
Chow was introduced as UH’s 22nd head coach and brought with him a resume that included being on the coaching staff of three national championship teams; having coached three Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks and six NFL first round draft picks. He also brought with him the pro-set offense, which he perfected at stops at BYU, North Carolina State, USC, UCLA, Utah, and at the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.
The 2012 season also marks UH's entrance into the Mountain West Conference, ending a 33-year affiliation with the WAC. UH concluded its first season under Chow with a 3-9 mark, including a 1-7 record in the MWC.
In 2013, UH reintroduced the nickname "Rainbow Warriors," in an effort to standardize the school's nickname for its men's sports.
After compiling a 10-36 record, Chow was fired with four games remaining in the 2015 season. Offensive line coach Chris Naeole took over as interim coach for the remainder of the season before Athletics Director David Matlin picked Rolovich as the program’s 23rd coach. Rolovich spent four seasons as Nevada’s offensive coordinator before bringing a new attitude to his alma mater with slogans such as “Pride Rock” and “Live Aloha, Play Warrior.”
PRIDE ROCK
Nick Rolovich took over in December 2015 and brought a new attitude. The former Warrior quarterback re-established “Pride Rock” ending a seven-year drought in winning seasons and guiding UH to three bowl games in four seasons. In his final two seasons as head coach, Rolovich re-installed the vaunted Run-N-Shoot offense. The result: 18 combined wins, including a 10-win 2019 campaign that saw the Warriors play in the Mountain West title game for the first time in program history. In January 2020, Rolovich departed for Washington State and the Warriors officially started a new era with the hiring of former Arizona State head coach Todd Graham.
PLAYING THROUGH A PANDEMIC
Graham took the reins during the most unusual of seasons as the world grappled with the COVID- 19 pandemic in 2020. With a tough, disciplined approach, Graham led UH to just its third-ever bowl appearance on the mainland where the Rainbow Warriors defeated Houston in the New Mexico Bowl to cap an abbreviated nine-game season. UH also earned a Hawai‘i Bowl bid in 2021 but the game was canceled due to COVID.
