Kamehameha names Stant football coach
The former Kahuku and Hawaii player has had success coaching in Japan
Star-Bulletin staff
sports@starbulletin.com
Kamehameha has hired former Hawaii player David Stant Jr. as its head football coach, the school announced yesterday. Stant replaces Kanani Souza, who served as head coach from 1996 to 2004 and again last season, winning a Division I state championship in 2004.
"It was a long process," said Souza, now the school's athletic director, "but it was a good process."
Stant, a Kahuku alumnus who played for UH in the late 1980s, comes to Kamehameha from Japan, where he had been general manager and coach for IBM-Japan's professional football team.
Kamehameha-Hawaii athletic director Bob Wagner, who was Stant's coach at UH, said Japanese pro football is fairly big time.
"I don't think anyone has any idea how high a level he's been coaching at," Wagner said. "And he's done really well there."
Wagner compared Stant's job in Japan to "the equivalent of a pretty good college-type situation."
Stant's teams have won four division championships, three league championships and three national championships in Japan's top corporate pro league, a Kamehameha release said.
"He is one of the most respected football minds in Japan," Souza said.
Stant had worked in Japanese pro football since 1990, but Wagner said in the past couple of years his former player had talked about being ready to come home to Hawaii. Stant is currently still in Japan, in the middle of moving.
Souza said there had been 11 serious applicants for the Warriors job, but Kamehameha was happy to have found its man. He praised Stant's positive approach.
"I can't say enough about his character," Wagner said.
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