Waipahu AD Morioka moving to Hana High
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Advertiser Staff
There won't be a "Gone Fishing" sign on Keith "Kiki" Morioka's office door at Waipahu High in June, but the veteran athletic director acknowledges that is one of the attractions that led to his decision to move to Maui's Hana High this summer.
Technically, Morioka will be making a lateral transfer, but the reality of moving from the state's second-largest public high school (2,401 students) to its third-smallest (101 students) is very different.
"I really don't know why I made the move," Morioka said. "I saw the ad and just felt it was the thing to do."
He said he loves to fish and to dive, which he does in his rare free time near his home in Punalu'u.
Waipahu is the only school Morioka has worked at. He did his student teaching there in 1969 and joined the staff as a teacher and coach in January 1970, the year the town schools and Rural OIA combined into the O'ahu Interscholastic Association.
He has coached "everything," he said — football, track, basketball, softball and was head baseball coach for six years. He has been athletic director the past 13 years and is coordinator of baseball for the 21-team OIA.
Stephen Kim, executive secretary of the Maui Interscholastic League, already has asked Morioka to be coordinator of baseball and softball. Kim has known Morioka since Kim was wrestling coach at Kaiser 20 years ago.
Morioka, 55, is a 1964 graduate of 'Iolani School and 1969 graduate of the University of Hawai'i .
His greatest satisfaction in teaching and coaching, Morioka said, has been when former students "find success and come back to visit and tell us about little things that we did that changed their lives or that they felt made them into better persons. That makes you feel good."
