By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Here it is just August and we already have our Hawai'i coach of the year competition pretty much sewed up.

Barring a parting of the seas, or at least the Ala Wai, that would be Clyde Tanabe.

If you've watched more than an inning of the Little League World Series on television these past couple weeks you, as well as a national audience, now know Tanabe, the plain-spoken coach of the Waipi'o team.

Or, as they have come to point him out on the streets of South Williamsport, Pa., "Hey, that coach from Hawai'i!"

That Tanabe and his coaches took this 14-member band of 11- and 12-year-olds to the series is one thing. Quite a remarkable one, too, considering no team from here had done it since 1988. But how they handled the whole three-ring circus atmosphere, keeping things in positive perspective when they got there, was even more so.

Tanabe, a 47-year-old therapist at the Hawai'i State Hospital by trade, said he initially was against wearing a microphone for television, "but they kept asking me and asking me before I gave in."

It was good that he did because it allowed us to better appreciate the down-to-Earth approach to coaching and how his players rallied around it.

The impromptu team meeting in the bottom of the sixth inning of the eventual 3-2 win over Worcester, Mass., was a classic. With ESPN2 cameras peering in, he told the players they were going to win the game, "right here and right now..." in front of the fans in the stands and "millions of people" watching on TV.

No screaming, no yelling. Just honest, straight-from-the-heart confidence that was rewarded when Travis Jones hit the first of two walk-off home runs in the series.

"This team doesn't react to a lot of yelling or screaming," Tanabe said. "At this point in the season, there's no need to yell. If they don't know something by now, then, that's my fault."

How refreshing to find a coach, in such a fish bowl and with so much riding on the games, that was content to let kids be kids. When media obligations ran overtime, instead of rigidly insisting on the practice hours that had been scheduled, he let them go swimming.

When the pressure could have been measured in tons per square inch, he encouraged the players to enjoy the moment, leading by example. Coming from a lot of coaches, Tanabe's theme of, "Millions of kids want to be out there; we made it, and winning or losing at this point is not a big deal," would have been a half-hearted tough sell.

The pride with which Waipi'o played out its final game, knowing, or at least guessing, it had already been eliminated, was fitting testament to the coach that helped take it there.