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By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist
By all accounts, it was absolute pandemonium on the field in the moments following Kahuku's victory in the Division I state football championship Friday night.
Fans were pouring onto the field. Kahuku players were jumping and screaming in celebration. The stadium was in complete, jubilant chaos.
Advertiser library photo
But one figure knelt in silence. Saint Louis kicker C.J. Santiago made four successful field goals in the game but missed the fifth as the last seconds ticked off the clock, thus sealing Kahuku's 27-26 win.
Kahuku players comforted Saint Louis' C.J. Santiago after he missed a potential game-winning field goal.
At almost the same moment, three people on that field saw Santiago and went to him. Two were Kahuku players, who saw their opponent down on the ground and immediately, almost instinctively, went to console him. The third was Advertiser photographer Eugene Tanner, who captured the moment in an unforgettable photo.
Afa Garrigan, a 17-year-old Kahuku senior, is on the left, his head bent close to Santiago like he's saying something.
"I told him, 'You did good, brah. You did really good in this game,' " Garrigan said.
Mauhe Moala, a 17-year-old junior, is on the right, his arm curled around Santiago in a gesture of support.
"I told him that he could have been the player of the game if they had won," Moala said.
Both Garrigan and Moala said they acted out of respect for the talented player Santiago is and the knowledge of how heartbreaking the loss must be.
"I don't know him," Garrigan said. "All I know is that he's a really, really good kicker."
"I remember when I was in Pop Warner," Moala said. "It was our championship game. I was playing hard, and we lost and then a person I was going up against, he came up to me and said the same thing to me. It made a difference."
Garrigan said it didn't really cross his mind that he was consoling an opponent. "Not an opponent," he said, "just another player. That's sportsmanship."
GARRIGAN
MOALA
Santiago doesn't really remember what the Kahuku players said to him, only that in that difficult moment, they told him to keep his head up.
"It could have been a really bitter loss. I mean, I wasn't happy that we lost, but because of the sportsmanship that they showed, it made it a lot easier to let go. It really meant a lot to me, " Santiago said. "I don't even know them personally, but it feels like we're friends. I have a lot of respect for the Kahuku players, especially after the support they showed us. They could have been jumping around and celebrating with their teammates, but they chose to talk to me. It's something I'll always remember."
Moala said he also took the opportunity to apologize to Santiago.
"In the first half of the game, I hit him on accident, so I had to apologize for that, for roughing the kicker. I told him that 'I'm sorry for running into you.' "
The moment was brief.
"What you see there is less than two seconds of shooting," Tanner said. "I shot three frames — boom, boom, boom."
One of those three shots was the photo that ran in Saturday's paper.
Then, a Saint Louis player came over to Santiago and pulled him off the field.
In Kahuku, that photo of what some might call a moment of humanity or kindness or compassion but the players simply refer to as "sportsmanship" is being talked about almost as much as the thrilling victory.
"It really speaks to the way the team members handle themselves with dignity," said Kahuku principal Lisa DeLong.
For Tanner, who has been a news photographer for close to 15 years and says he's "just about shot everything," it was an image that summed up what he says was the most incredible end of a sporting event he had ever seen.
"In that game, I shot over 700 pictures in three hours, and it came down to a second-and-a-half, three pictures. Those were the only three that mattered."
Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
