Kamaehu Richards was well on his way to becoming a junior college football success story.
Kamaehu Richards was well on his way to becoming a junior college football success story.
His second season with the Pima Aztecs was almost in the books, his grades were in order and he had multiple scholarship offers in hand thanks to his versatility and viciousness on the defensive line.
Then his Honokaa-boy-done-good tale almost was derailed on a simple pitch play. Late during the 2016 season, Richards went to make a tackle, but as bad luck would have it so did a Pima safety, who a essentially ended up tackling Richards’ knee.
He lay on the field as he was attended to by the team’s medical personnel, but one didn’t need to be doctor to see his knee was bending in directions it shouldn’t.
“Wobbly and too flexible,” he said of ACL and MCL injuries. “I thought I had ruined my chance.”
Richards could have felt sorry for himself, but, for one, he didn’t have time. He had to begin the painful process of rehabbing his knee. For another, that’s not how his parents, Cody and Shiryl Richards off Waimea, raised him.
“Work, work, work,” he said of his father’s influence.
When his scholarship offers to four-year colleges dried up, Richards was suddenly a player without a team, but there was at least one school out there that had a team without players.
Ottawa University in Phoenix, approximately 120 miles up the road from Pima Community College in Tucson, Ariz., is starting up its football program and coach Mike Nesbitt offered Richards a chance.
The 2015 Honokaa High graduate had been on recruiting visits to Division II programs where schools “wanted me to come, but they didn’t seem to want me.”
The trip to Ottawa, which aims to play in NAIA, was different.
“They showed me the love,” said Richards, not to mention a scholarship. “With everything they did, they showed me they wanted me.”
It was settled. He signed with Ottawa in April intent on taking a medical redshirt in 2017, giving him two years of football eligibility starting in 2018.
However, tragedy struck the Richards ohana in May when his father suffered a heart attack. At that point, Kamaehu didn’t know if he’d ever make it back to Arizona.
“We had a family meeting, and I decided to stay home (for a year),” he said. “I called Ottawa, and they didn’t have a problem with it. They said take two or three years if you need.”
These days, father and son rehabs are on schedule in North Hawaii. Kamaehu says his father has trimmed some 50-plus pounds from his once-300-pound frame. The younger Richards is “training every day, working out and constantly running,” and he’s reconnected with Dragons football.
He has a key to the workout facility and hopes play a role in helping Honokaa put a winning BIIF product on the field this season.
Richards still plans to return to Ottawa to compete and study fire science, though admits he’s also intrigued by a D-II offer at Eastern New Mexico.
His Honokaa-boy-done-good tale is back on track.
“In college, they want defensive lineman to be (6 feet, 7 inches), 6-6,” Richards said. “I’m 6-2, 230 pounds right now, but my hard work ethic, that’s how I get by.
“I learned to keep my head straight and keep my head in the books. In high school, I never had that attitude.”
And if any of his former Honokaa teammates are still around, Richards has a message for them: When his knee is healthy, he’s ready to knock heads and play ball with them.
“Kids who are from Honokaa, good things can happen,” he said.