Twenty-five years ago, assistant coach Rich Ellerson was in the living room of Ken Niumatalolo's La'ie home, selling him on a football scholarship to the University of Hawai'i.

For three years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they coached together at UH.

A couple of years ago, they were in Niumatalolo's Annapolis, Md., front room comparing notes on offenses and defenses, demonstrating techniques.

Now they'll step way beyond living rooms and decades-long friendship, going head-to-head for recruits and ultimately, come November, standing on opposing sidelines as head coaches in college football's grandest rivalry, the Army-Navy game.

Last Friday, when the 54-year-old Ellerson was named Army's new head coach, Navy's Niumatalolo was coming to terms with self-described "bittersweet" feelings.

"I'm happy for Rich; I'm not happy for us," said Niumatalolo, who just completed his first season as the Midshipmen's head coach.

Or, as Duane Akina, an assistant coach at the University of Texas who coached with both at UH, puts it, "for those that know them, this puts a whole new spin on the Army-Navy game."

To be sure, the matching of two former UH players and graduates gives the going-on 110-year-old football rivalry a Hawai'i flair.

Who knew that a limb from the Dick Tomey coaching tree would extend to the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy battle? Or that another former UH head coach, Bob Wagner, and his then-offensive coordinator, Paul Johnson, would also rub off on it?

Yet, this is where both Ellerson and Niumatalolo learned the intricacies of the spread-option offense that both teams will run. This is where they got groundings in defense, special teams and recruiting and ran with them up the coaching ladder.

The success that Navy had under Johnson, with Niumatalolo as a hands-on assistant, helped get Niumatalolo the job at Annapolis a year ago. The way Navy has controlled the series, winning seven in a row and dominating the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, has aided Ellerson, an Army brat born in Japan and former Midshipman, in getting his foot in the door at West Point after head coaching jobs at Southern Utah and Cal Poly.

When the blue and gold of Navy and gold and gray of Army clash in the future, there will be a little bit of Manoa green in there, too. For somewhere under the leadership of the Black Knights and Midshipmen is an unmistakable Rainbow connection.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.