Mid-Pacific hires former college basketball coach

By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

After spending the past 12 years coaching basketball at the collegiate level, Kevin O'Connell will try something new in a very familiar place. The 37-year-old Arkansas native will be the new boys basketball coach at Mid-Pacific Institute, succeeding Bill Wheeler, MPI announced.

O'Connell has been an assistant with Division III Washington University in St. Louis since 1992. His connection to Hawai'i is his wife, Ka'ili Trask, a Punahou School graduate from Kailua. They met while undergraduate students at Washington, he said. O'Connell has visited here often with his wife and two children (Brendan, 10, and Keala, 7).

"We've been looking for an opportunity to move to Hawai'i, and this is an excellent opportunity for both of us," O'Connell said in a telephone interview. "Not only will I be coaching basketball (and teaching physical education), but she will be the director of development (at MPI). It's almost meant to be when something like this happens."

O'Connell played basketball at Washington, where he graduated with a psychology degree. He earned his master's degree in exercise science at USC, where he spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant. The MPI job will be his first at the high school level.

"I try not to look at the level I'm coaching at," O'Connell said of the transition from college to preps. "I look for the right fit, a place where I can be comfortable, a place where I can make a difference and a place where my own philosophies are the same philosophies of the school."

O'Connell said after meeting with MPI president Joe Rice, high school principal Richard Schaffer and athletic director Bill Villa, he felt comfortable about accepting the coaching job.

"They have a vision of where they want the athletic program to be, and they're committed to the academic programs," O'Connell said.

O'Connell said he plans to have his family moved here by Aug. 1. Mid-Pacific starts classes Aug. 10.

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8042.