By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

When it was time to design T-shirts for the University of Hawai'i's special teams unit last year, it was linebacker Chad Kalilimoku's skillful work that was chosen.

When friends go looking for tattoo designs, it is Kalilimoku they often ask to sketch out their requests.

"He can draw anything you like; you name it and he will draw it (real) well, too," said teammate Chad Kapanui.

The UH football team has come to expect big tackles from Chad Kalilimoku. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

In this he is the Warriors' Picasso of pain. Entering the Warriors' season opener Saturday night with Appalachian State, Kalilimoku is an emerging artist who works primarily in black and blue, not only leveling running backs, receivers and anybody else unfortunate enough to venture into his sights, but doing it with an explosiveness that captures the imagination of teammates, coaches and fans.

His ringing tackle in a practice Sunday night echoed in an empty Aloha Stadium, heralding his ascension to the starting middle linebacker spot vacated by Chris Brown's move to the Baltimore Ravens.

From the beginning, Kalilimoku was an instant hit at Aloha Stadium, earning a following as a backup. Early in his first game at UH last season, Kalilimoku laid such a devastating stop on an Eastern Illinois running back that it earned a place on the team's K5-produced highlight reel.

"He hit the tailback in the hole so hard that he just absolutely picked him up off the ground," head coach June Jones still marvels. "That got our attention."

"Sometimes," said linebacker coach George Lumpkin, "you don't know how the guys he hits ever get up because when he brings it, he really brings it."

"His tackles are like train wrecks," said assistant coach Dan Morrison, who recruited Kalilimoku out of Roosevelt High via Santa Ana (Calif.) College.

So much so that when players are scattered on the field like so many bowling pins and the coaches in the press box booth didn't see who made the tackle, "We say, 'that must have been Chad,' " Morrison said. "And, usually, after all the bodies are unpiled, it turns out that it was No. 56."

The ferocity with which the blows come belies the 5-foot-11, 240-pound stature of the man who delivers them with tightly coiled explosiveness and an instinctive timing.

"I've known him since we were about 10 years old and played Pop Warner together at Punchbowl," Kapanui said. "Because of his size, people, at first, can't believe he can hit that hard. Even when he got here (to UH), I told the other big hitters on the team they would be surprised. I don't think they understood at first. But he made believers out of them."

For when it comes to being hit by Kalilimoku, hurting is believing.