HondaReport.com - The Black Flag flies high

Covering Waipahu football games doesn't happen often for me, but this is the second feature I've written about the Marauders in two seasons. There was a limitation of space in Wednesday's feature, which you can find at starbulletin.com. The much longer version is below. Mahalo to the Marauders for their help with the many interviews they gave me.

Early morning and Mr. Balais rubs the makapiapia out of his eyes and checks the clock. The tie. The shirt. The dress pants. The shoes.

It's all on in almost no time. He cleans up and hits the road. By 7:15 a.m. yesterday, he was back in air-conditioned confines with more than 30 other men. There are strategies to coordinate, data to study and reports to submit.

By the end of the meeting, they disperse to their daily responsibilities, only a few hours away from their next meeting at noon. Meetings upon meetings, brainstorms followed by spirals that hail from the sky when they gather again at mid-afternoon.

The life of a Waipahu Marauder never ends, it seems. Mr. Balais, 252 pounds packed on a 5-foot-9 frame, will lament the day it all stops. There is only one time in a man's life to carry the Black Flag at the historic campus.
When Rodney Balais marches through the streets of his neighborhood, the flag waves from his soul. In his lean 17 years, there was a choice to make: The Black Flag or the streets.

The black flag was raised up by coach Sean Saturnio, still waving strong after seven years of sunshine and stormy weather.

"If we didn't have Coach Sean, I think more than half the team would be in gangs or be druggies," Balais said. Choosing football at Waipahu isn't easy.

Instead of a squad of 70 or 80 players from a campus of more than 2,000 students, Balais is one of less than 35 players. The brotherhood is empowering, but with power comes responsibility. Balais chose the flag.

That choice turned into a brutal test of character one year ago. Mistakes were made, rules were broken, and instead of taking the easy way out, he was one of many Marauders who faced the firing squad, so to speak, rather than run into hiding.

When one suffers, all suffer, and Mr. Balais felt the anger and scorn of an entire campus, as did all his teammates. But on this morning, as it is three mornings every week, he rubs his eyes awake, and is a Marauder once again.

After last week's 22-6 win over a hearty Kaimuki squad, Balais is still just another Marauder.

SATURNIO MADE IT a point to prepare more than ever this year, for everything imaginable. "We're ready for everything," quarterback Gil Fernandez said. "So much more than before. In the Kaimuki game, we ran plays we didn't practice all week. We have the same vibe as before, but things are faster now 'cause guys know more. We didn't have to start the season from scratch."

The parents who bemoaned Saturnio's disciplinary approach have quieted. The parents who applauded Saturnio's consistency are smiling. "The real fans are the parents," Fernandez said. "The real fans were there for us."

There's no bitterness or false pride about it all. The Marauders want the community to be one. Better late than never.

"Last year," Fernandez recalled, "I'd ask people, 'You coming to the game?' They'd say, 'Why, you guys are only gonna lose.' This year, they're asking me, 'When's the game? Where's it gonna be?' "

THERE ARE MERCY RULES. A football team takes a 35-point lead and upon the ensuing kickoff, the clock never stops, not for penalties, incomplete passes or, God forbid, more touchdowns by the team in front.

Then there is mercy as a rule. When half of the team broke a rule last year, Saturnio and his team knew their season of struggle had taken a turn for the worst. A season of promise was winding down with a 1-5 record when the news hit. With half of his team suspended for one game, the team was down to 19 players, an inadequate total for the school's administrators. The Marauders' homecoming game with first-place Moanalua would be forfeited.

The campus soured on the players. Not everyone gave the boys a thumb's down, but there were questions. Then more questions. Even on-campus teacher Saturnio, along with his all-faculty staff, was questioned by his peers. For his young players, the not-so-funny jokes about their win-loss record turned into outright disrespect. For Saturnio, there were even harsh phone calls and an anonymous voicemail caller who berated him for applying any discipline during homecoming week.

Instead of folding, the Marauders turned inward. They faced each other. Rulebreakers were sorry for their bad choices. The innocent players held on to their brothers in arms, refusing to let go. Saturnio pleaded with administration to let him handle the discipline rather than allow harsher penalties for the rulebreakers.

Saturnio stood by his standards, both in consequences for errors and mercy for the seemingly unforgiven.

"Coach Sean really cares about our futures," quarterback Gil Fernandez said. "And about doing the right things 'cause one day we'll be fathers.

WHEN NO. 99 WALKED to his teammates at game's end last Friday, he did not care about anything but them. The victory shone upon his face. The tears fell. But all he could talk about was his family, the Marauder family. Saturnio taught them to be a family, to believe in each other. The Oahu Interscholastic Association White Conference championship trophy was held high, but the rewards are intangible.

Aaron Paahana, like Rodney Balais, was one of nearly 20 players who owned up to their mistakes of a year ago. Mercy begat humility, which begat honor, and honor instilled pride in Paahana, Balais and the entire Marauder team.

Instead of falling apart after that homecoming forfeit, they rallied and nearly upset playoff-bound Kalaheo in a 20-14 loss.

Was a season of torment worth the lessons? Perhaps it isn't if coaches aren't around for 7:15 a.m. meetings. The pain may not be worth anything if there are no weekly meetings in the off-season to discuss everything and anything but football. Saturnio is fond of the late Jimmy Valvano, the North Carolina State basketball coach, and his simple encouragement to think, to laugh, to be unafraid to let tears fall where they may.

Many of those off-season meetings led right back to the core of what men do, at least in Saturnio's eyes. They become leaders. They explore the root of their role models. They confess what they wish they had with their fathers, what they would like to be as fathers one day.

Waipahu football, in seven years under Saturnio's leadership, is a football champion. Waipahu football is also a think tank for young men who chose brotherhood in the Black Flag rather than the alternative.

ONE DAY in the summer, Matt Soueira decided it was time to visit his new school. The former Kalaheo Mustang had transferred to Waipahu, but was insecure about his new surroundings. Recently graduated Marauder Nathan Naumu showed him the ropes. "He encouraged me to go out for the team," he said, not knowing exactly what the school year would bring. "The 7:15 meetings, at first I was kinda trippin' out, but now I know it prepares us for the next level. Coach Sean emphasizes the word 'faith.' From Day 1, I was treated like I was one of their own. In all my years of football, there was nothing ever like this."

Soueira came up with some big touchdown plays in the regular-season win over Kaimuki, but was a focus of attention by the Bulldogs in the title game. "It's never about one person." he said. "I'm actually flattered that they keyed on me. It made the win sweeter, knowing that the boys got to make the plays."
Soueira, one of several co-captains, takes pride his his team's academic advancement. So do his teammates.

"This is one of the first years we didn't have probation guys during the season," Balais said.

BALAIS WILL KICK empty beer cans out of the way as he marches to school. Every day, he can't ignore where he comes from.

"There's too much stuff in Waipahu, especially with ice. Drugs. Gangs. In our program, we're closer to the coaches now than we were three, four years ago," said Balais, who hopes to mentor kids as a Big Brother one day.

The early-morning meetings separate the Marauders from most football programs or clubs. The navigational tools are freely given. Love is freely given, the kind that places grace above retribution.

"Some guys come from tough families," defensive back Steven Berndt said. "Coming to school and practice is like heaven to them."

Berndt sat in the lockerroom at Aloha Stadium, soaking in the championship victory last week, a surreal moment of time rewinding and fast-forwarding in his mind. The drills. The meetings. The Wednesday special teams practice sessions before school.

"I was thinking about last year and how much we changed it around. We believed in each other, had faith in each other to succeed in whatever we do," he said. "I love going to play football with the boys. I'm an only child. I never experienced having brothers and sisters. That's why I love being around these guys.

Like Berndt, Samson Mau doesn't want the season to end. "Most of us have nowhere else to go. We want to play together longer," he said.

The 5-10, 253-pound defensive lineman made it one of his goals as a senior to unify the family as much as possible. "A football team has different kinds of people, so I wanted everyone to feel comfortable," he said.

Winning has a way of drawing a crowd. Big crowds. The heart of it all, however, was still beating while the Marauders were nearly bottomed out in the win column.

HE HAS cried alone. Cried in front of his coaches and players. Saturnio doesn't stop just because a reporter or TV camera is nearby. He hears what his players say about faith, about sacrifice for one another, and he chokes up. It is the only way to silence a man with a thousand proverbs.

On a quiet afternoon before practice, he stands in his classroom and thinks of his town. "Maybe we're the match that sparks a renaissance in our community," Saturnio said. The homemade pies from neighbors, the handshaking at Foodland, they mean a lot to him, but he doesn't forget the loneliness of last year. He simply forgives, again and again.

His mind is on the state tourney, the opening-round game at Kamehameha-Hawaii, but he lives in the moment, a Marauder whisperer of sorts. It's enough that many of his players, such as the aforementioned co-captains, share his message. It's means a little more that they achieve good grades and aspire to attend college. The legacy they are leaving is priceless.

"I need this program as much as the kids do," he confessed. His staff is small, each coach responsible for at least two positions. They began as men of hope, learning x's and o's along the way. Priority one remains the same.

"I didn't really know my father until after high school, when we could actually talk. I never knew the depth and pain of his life," Saturnio said of mending their relationship. "I'm not saying to go hugging trees.