"He was just a great kid and a great all-around athlete — a track star, a wrestler and a football player. He had it all. But more than that was his strength of heart. Always smiling. The first thing you would notice about him was his smile. Even through his football helmet, you'd see him smiling."

Hernandez said Tan missed practice only once, the day he was at the hospital while his girlfriend was giving birth to the couple's baby girl, Riley, who recently turned one month old.

"When his girlfriend was 7 and 8 months pregnant, they'd walk about campus together holding hands."

According to police, Tan was driving west by himself on Farrington Highway just before noon Wednesday when he lost control of his blue 1995 Honda Prelude and plowed through the right guardrail and into the rocky embankment between Ko Olina Resort and the Kahe power plant.

Ikaika Tan

Kapolei High School, which opened the summer of 2000 with 375 students, is on winter break. School begins again Tuesday, and there will be a ceremony for Tan.

Senior Darin Awong, who, along with Tan, was a member of the school's first varsity football team, took out his hurt by tearing into a punching bag Wednesday.

"Me and Ikaika were supposed to graduate together this year," Awong said yesterday, moments after watching a video of the all-star game in which Tan played last season. Awong, the Hurricanes' 350-pound right guard, said he cried again when the announcer read Tan's name in the line-up.

Throughout the day yesterday people showed up at the crash site with flowers, cards, leis, candles, photos and other memorabilia.

Shortly after 1 p.m., Tan's family arrived in a black pickup truck.

Eileen Tan broke down and sobbed uncontrollably the moment she stepped from the truck and moved toward the makeshift memorial for her son.

Ikaika's aunt, Marilyn Angelo, who works in the office at Kapolei High School, tried to comfort Chaelynn Tan, 14,

Ikaika's sister, who was also weeping and who shares the same birthday as her older brother — June 5.

Ikaika's dad, Paul Tan, red-eyed and stunned, still managed to crack a smile at the description of his son as a fun and funny guy.

"That's him," he said.

Paul Tan said he had been touched by the huge outpouring of sentiment from friends and classmates.

"Last night I was surprised, there was so much people at the hospital," said Tan, who was at Queen's when students, friends and teachers began showing up.

"They had a candlelight vigil here (at the crash site) last night, and over at the school, they had a candlelight there, too."

As he spoke, his wife, still weeping, quietly moved about, gathering up a car part here, a slipper there, and cards from a deck of red Bicycle playing cards that had apparently flown from the Honda at the moment of impact.

"He always like cards," said Tan's father. "All kinds of games. He was good at it."

Ikaika was good at most everything he did, said Glenn Molina, 18, who showed up with a bouquet of flowers moments after Tan's family left.

Molina graduated from Kapolei in 2004 and played football for the Hurricanes. He bowed his head and stood in silence for several moments.

"I'm having a hard time dealing with this," said Molina, who plays trumpet for the University of Hawai'i Rainbows Marching Band. "About a month ago I ran into him at Safeway and he told me that he was planning to go UH and play football. I assumed I'd be seeing him on the field at UH.

"Somehow, I sort of felt like he was destined to be a star."