Asai Gilman

May 25, 2010—Asai Gilman has enjoyed, and continues to enjoy his association with sports, as both an athlete and coach. There are lessons to be learned from being a part of a team—working together to reach common goals. But he also knows there are other things in life as well. As executive director of Education-1st Hawaii, Gilman encourages youth to set goals to get an education, establish a career, and give back to the community. It is a pattern that Gilman should know well. After all, he leads by example. Photo: Game Plan participants listen intently to instructions, courtesy of Education-1st Hawaii.

LatterDaySports: What is your personal sports background?

Asai Gilman: I played at Kamehameha Schools in the 80s. Prior to Kamehameha, I went to St. Louis High School.

I transferred and participated in football, track, basketball. After that I had a whole bunch of letters my junior year to play for division I (universities). It didn’t work out. I got hurt my senior year. I missed—after my third game of the season—four games. The letters stopped, calls stopped. So the only calls I got was JC and so I decided to take the JC route and went to junor college at Ricks. I played there for two years and did okay.

My freshman year I made all-conference. My second year I went on my mission and came back and I played my last year. It all depends on how well your season’s going and the need of the position at a division I (school). Good schools, bigger schools, were recruiting me my freshman and sophomore years. After my mission, smaller schools. I got recruited to play at Weber, Idaho, Idaho State, University of Utah at that time, Southern Utah and Utah State.

So I chose Southern Utah University and was married then. I finished my football college experience in Utah.

LatterDaySports: What position did you play?

Gilman: I played in high school, running back and slot. My senior year in high school I played defensive back, (so I played) both ways. I chose in college, defensive back.

LatterDaySports: What year did you graduate from high school?

WITH ASAI GILMAN

Stand-up paddle boarding or long boarding?
Oh, stand-up guarantee brah. I been doing short board and then long board since I got home, but just recently, stand-up is the way.

Scripture study in the morning or at night?
Night, guarantee at night. Morning … I’m still sleeping!

White Christmas or green Christmas?
Green Christmas all the way. I’ve been in the white, but green Christmas brah. Surfing on that day is a winnah.

Dinner and a movie or dinner and dancing?
Dinner and dancing. There’s no way a movie is gonna beat it. My wife is going to drag me on the dance floor.

NFL or college football?
College all the way. Any college sport. Professional … junk. It’s all for the bling that’s why. You see strategic play with college.

Gilman: ’85

LatterDaySports: So tell me about Education 1^st.

Gilman: It’s a non-profit organization, native Hawaiian organization now. An NHO they call it. It’s an idea that we were able to implement—501c3 organization. It started seven years ago and the idea came about when I was on the mainland.

I did my graduate assistant work at Southern Utah—after I was done playing—and I coached there and then went to Dixie College and coached. My areas of emphasis as I recruited was different areas of the reservations, Las Vegas, Arizona, California, Hawaii.

I had a lot of time traveling and pondering about what I was doing at these college presentations. I always wanted to provide a program for the children in Hawaii.

I conceptualized the idea of this company when I was in the mainland working. It’s a non-profit to help kids. The mission is to motivate kids and their mom’s and dad’s—families—to graduate with a college degree, give them the confidence for it and then contribute back to society and in communities.

LatterDaySports: And how does Game Plan Academy fit into it?

Gilman: Game Plan is broken up into five different programs. We got one that’s called Junior Football Academy for little kids. One is called Game Plan for Parents, Game Plan for seventh and eighth graders, and Game plan for ninth to twelfth graders. We are also adding Game Plan Rugby Academy which starts in 2011. We are excited about that.

So what it is, is an immersion program. It’s like SOAR at Provo but catered just for student athletes. It’s attached to Education 1^st that way. Oh, the last one is, GPA—Play it Smart and that’s a TV show on OC16.

LatterDaySports: Yeah, that’s a good show.

Gilman: Yes, it’s an amazing, inspiring show. Also, the hosts, Mika and Aaron are informative and humorous.

LatterDaySports: Yeah it’s fun. You kind of answered this already but what motivated you to start these programs?

Gilman: What motivated me was that experience I had when I was working on the mainland. Doing presentations at different places and meeting with parents, and great athletes. They just lacked the skills to get into college and play their sport and to hopefully get their degree.

At Dixie College I was a recruiting coordinator and dorm manager for student athlete dorms. I would see all the guys from Hawaii come and they wouldn’t last. One semester and they’d go home. So what I wanted to do—after seeing that—was implement some programs for them to stick it through. The commonality was lack of focus, lack of discipline and management skills—all the study skills—time management, reading comprehension, critical thinking. Those were the five things that they lacked.

Great skills on the football fields but the focus and maturity were not there. With age, you get that, and these young kids who are coming from this rock wouldn’t last. Probably the reason why I lasted was because of that idea of getting married and going on a mission helped create (that focus). So that’s what motivated me to start this program. I wondered if it was an epidemic, and it is. There’s such a need.

Asai Gilman, Executive Director of Education-1st Hawaii addresses a group of student athletes. Gilman also currently serves as the Laie Hawaii North Stake Young Men's President and is an Assistant Director for Admissions at BYU–Hawaii. Photo courtesy of Education-1st Hawaii.

LatterDaySports: So it’s your way of helping these kids start early …

Gilman: Yup.

LatterDaySports … figure out what they need to do and get serious.

Gilman: Yeah, what’s great about Game Plan is that we offer that parent workshop and every month we offer what we call a chalk talk. Chalk talk is a monthly academic college advising held at Windward Community College. Our staff and those people that support us at the university level in Hawaii and the mainland—when they’re available—come down and support a variety of topics. In the academia academy section during the summer, we stress parent involvement. Without them getting involved, it’s a lose-lose. It’s been my experience that if you get the parents involved and they understand the process and the steps better, the kids can take it.

LatterDaySports: How are you able to make connections with coaches and others to get involved?

Gilman: Luckily some of the guys I coached against, and/or with, are coaching at other universities and colleges. Some of my former teammates are in coaching and guys that I competed against are in coaching. I was able to call them and say this is what we’re doing. Here’s our mission, here’s the objective, here’s our goals. I want you to contribute your time and volunteer … and what would it take for us to get you here.

They loved the concept and it was just a matter of calling people and networking. Beyond that it’s more the (organizational) things that we’ve done. We had to write away for a federal grant, and that allows some resources to be available to bring these guys as academic and college advisors rather than coaches to recruit.

When I pitched it to my network and all of my friends that knew about what I was trying to do, they loved this concept, that we’re not talking x’s and o’s only. We’re talking about life skills. We’re talking about the college process, graduating with a degree. Because of that they honed in on it.

So June Jones for instance, Dan Morrison, all those guys, I went to them first. Actually, I went to Duane Akina first. Duane Akina is at Texas. He is an assistant head coach. I shared the vision with him and he said he loved it. I wanted him to be a part of it as a camp director and he said nah, you know what, you should go to June first because he’s the flagship here in Hawaii. These coaches have great camaraderie and respect for each other.

So I went to June and spoke to him. He hit it off with me on the first get go with what I was trying to do. When I sat down with him, he loved the idea. He asked for three days of thought and he called out of the blue, three days later. I never thought he would call me back. He called back and said, “Asai, I’m in”, and I said, “Why?” He said, “I’m in because I don’t want to baby sit these kids. I want to catch these student athletes before they get a chance to come to UH for the purpose of putting the priority in education first. This allows us to indirectly help (student athletes) get prepared. And beyond that it’s about having kids become leaders, and I love that.”

I shared that with Bronco Mendenhall—same thing. (We had the) same conversation, but a lot deeper. I had a deep conversation with him about leadership, about the purpose.

LatterDaySports: You already mentioned some coaches. Who are some others who are involved?

Gilman: Oh, Norm Chow, UCLA guy. He was at USC before. Ron McBride at University of Utah. He’s at Weber State now. Kyle Whittingham, University of Utah. Brain Norwood who was at Penn State, Radford grad but now he’s at Baylor. I think he’s the DC. Kenny Niumatalolo, Navy. He’s been an active participant in our cause. He comes out every year. A whole bunch of JC and DIII guys. Mark Kaanapu, Doug Hire from Linfield. Mark Kaanapu was at Menlo at that time. He’s at Merced now.

LatterDaySports: Can you share any specific success stories that your program has produced?

Gilman: We’ve served over 3,000 people in seven years.

LatterDaySports: Oh, okay. (laughing)

Gilman: In terms of having them graduate, we evaluated those that graduated last year and I think 83% of those who were in our program graduated with a degree. It’s one thing to inspire and motivate and provide the tools, it’s another thing for them to apply an implement it. Again, it takes focus and maturity. We give them the road map. Here’s your game plan. Go ahead and do it now.

LatterDaySports: Who are some of the athletes who have gone through the program who we might have heard of?

Gilman: A whole bunch came through our program. One is Rocky Savaiigaea from Aiea. He was able to get the letter of intent but he couldn’t activate the letter of intent because of his grades and his test scores. So he had to work on his grades, and get a better test score. Coming into our program he was inspired to go to the clearinghouse. Learning how to do the clearinghouse through our program put him on the fast track (toward) it. He graduated this past June.

Kimo Alo graduated as well. Kahuku grad. He went to Arizona Western, walked on at UH and graduated with his degree this past June.

Kealoha Pilares, slotback at UH came to us. Brashton Satele, Blaze Soares came to our program as well. Tuika Tufaga the other d-tackle. Inoke (Funaki) participated in our program as a mentor and an advisor. Colt Brennan came. Manti Te’o was a part of our program. Robby Toma. The starting quarterback at UH, Bryant Moniz. Brett Kan who walked on at USC. He was set with college though, coming from Punahou. His father’s an orthopedic. He comes from good stock. Reggie Torres’ daughter. We have a girls program too. The Tailele girl went to D-II. Peter’s daughter. LeAnn Mapu. She was in our first class in our academy. She graduated. She played volleyball at BYU–Hawaii.

So a host of different people came though our program. I was so glad to be able to help. To help them see the vision. Manti obviously was pushed just like Brett Kan at Punahou. He attracted so many people. He’s on our video on our Web site, talking about this company. Education 1^st taught him to think out of the box—to know that you can’t just put everything into one basket. We interviewed him for our first GPA Play it Smart. What an amazing student athlete. That’s maturity. Davone Bess was one who came through our program to help out as an advisor.

LatterDaySports: Bess helps out a lot. I see him all over the place.

Gilman: Oh yeah, he’s all for the kids.

LatterDaySports: In your opinion, why do you think sports are so important to these young peoples lives?

Gilman: It’s a vehicle to obtain knowledge. You have to look at it that way. Often times the kids don’t do that. Kids look at ESPN, trying to see if they can be in the same highlight reel as the rest of the great athletes.

However, getting a degree, utilizing their skill on the field or court, wherever that is, if they can connect those two together and say okay, the purpose of why I’m doing this is because it’s an opportunity for me to receive a degree and use the knowledge that I’ve obtained to hopefully get into a good career and opportunity to work, be a citizen in communities, to give back. That’s the whole vision and mission of Education 1^st. Once you’ve got some great confidence in yourself and obtain a degree, now be a leader in communities—give back in any capacity.

In the church we have an awesome venue, being involved in youth programs where we can give back. But outside of that you can make a great effect. I’ll always fall back to the statement by Mayor (Mufi) Hannemann who has been involved in our program every year. He always shares this profound statement that says, “Athletes make great leaders in communities.”

I never thought about it from that perspective but when you think about it, all the things that they’ve learned—challenges, wins and losses, makes or breaks character. Teamwork. Those are the character building skills that help to move big projects forward.

I must say that he’s pretty right. I mean, he’s using his athletic background as well by way of leading the city of Honolulu. When he goes about managing, you can see the athletic leadership background coming across.

So taking good things from an athletic background and applying it in a career is what I’m trying to achieve. Some of these kids don’t see that line, (neither do) their parents. They just see here and now. What we try to do is open their minds. It is much more than that. My eyes were certainly opened from when I was younger. Luckily, I had some good mentors who helped me see that way.

LatterDaySports: Thank you. It’s been interesting. You’re doing some good stuff.

Gilman: Hopefully we can continue.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 11:10 pm. It is filed under Administration, Football and tagged with College Football, Education 1st, Game Plan Academy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.