Girls HS basketball: Honokaa Honma stepping down but not out

Looking back now, it’s almost inconceivable considering the BIIF girls basketball hierarchy of the last decade, but Honokaa High got the best of Konawaena during the 2006 season.

And not just once or twice, but three times.

“We used to beat them all the time,” Daphne Honma said.

That’s a fitting parting shot for Honma, who recently stepped down after 20-plus years at the helm of the Dragons, deciding not to reapply for her job. Per school rule, coach’s must do so on a year-to-year basis.

Honma had two stints as coach. First she guided the Dragons as a perennial BIIF powerhouse before state classification, and most recently she led Honokaa to consecutive HHSAA Division II titles in 2014-15. In between, she helped start the UH-Hilo women’s basketball program, serving as its first coach.

“I guess it was just a bunch of events,” Honma said. “I decided it was time for me to go. My time had run its course.

“I still love the school and all of the students.”

Aaron Tanimoto, a former assistant under Honma and a science teacher at Honokaa, takes over the program. Athletic director Keith Tolentino said the Dragons were moving back down to Division II after playing the past two years at Division I – simply put, Honma wouldn’t have had it any other way.

All her greatest memories at Honokaa came when her teams were playing the best of the best.

Perhaps her favorite moment evolved not from any of those three victories in 2006 against the now nine-time unbeaten BIIF champion Wildcats, nor the Dragons’ run to the state title game in 1997.

The snapshot special to her heart came when Honokaa, after finishing third at the 2006 HHSAA championships behind star Keisha Kanekoa, was invited to march in the Western Week Parade.

“At first our girls were shy and hesitant, but when we got in line and walked down the school hill and took the corner on Mamane Street, the crowd erupted in cheers,” Honma said. “I know our players were overwhelmed, and some cried. I told them, ‘Girls, whatever you do, keep walking and keep smiling.”

“We were always out to represent the community positively in everything we did,” she said. “We finished third that year, but the crowd treated us like champions. The lesson for the girls was if you represent your community like a champion, that’s how you’re treated even if you don’t win.”

The Tribune-Herald doesn’t have official records available prior to 1996, but Honma started an 18-year coaching stint in 1988, and she said the Dragons won “several” BIIF titles, including in 1997, 2001 and 2006.

Honma’s no longer on the bench at Honokaa – though she remains a physical education teacher there – but in many ways she’s still on the case for the Big Island basketball community as a whole. Honma closed Big Island All Stars, a club she helped start in 2000 with Kalei Namohala, but in its place is the Fro Hawaii Basketball Academy.

The newer venture is for players ages 5 to high schoolers. Linda Frolich, a former WNBA player, started Fro Basketball in California with the help of Dayna Gambill, who played for Honma on the 1997 Honokaa team that lost to Punahou in the state title game.

“We want to get kids from all over the island,” said Honma, who took a Fro Hawaii team to the West Coast for tournament earlier this month. “For me, I just want to see good basketball. The level of basketball has gone down here.

“I do see potential, but we just need to boost it.”

Honma saw good basketball at Honokaa when she returned as coach prior to the 2014 season. The Dragons finally unseated six-time BIIF Division II champion Kamehameha en route to a state repeat.

Along the way, Honma never hid her disdain for the lower classification, and Honokaa finished third and then fourth the past two seasons in Division I.

“I would rather be the worst of the best than the best of the worst,” she said.

In 2006, she had the best of both worlds.