Payongayong’s Creativity Keeps Players On Their Toes

Del.icio.us

Island Pacific Academy head basketball coach Joe Payongayong is at home on any court. Photo by Nathalie Walker, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Part of being a good basketball player is being creative and able to adapt. Island Pacific Academy boys basketball head coach Joe Payongayong knows this first hand. As the coach of a team without a gymnasium, he’s finding he has to be both of those things as well.

“I used to be in the Marine Corps, so whatever it takes,” laughed Payongayong. “If we have to run up the hill in Makakilo (as a workout), that’s good enough for me.”

Indeed, nothing can dampen the mood around the IPA program. In November, Payongayong and the Navigators will begin their first season as a varsity program in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu’s Division II, where they’ll compete with the likes of University High, Lanakila Baptist, Hanalani and Hawaii Baptist Academy in addition to Iolani, Kamehameha and Punahou’s DII teams.

“It’s very exciting,” Payongayong said. “It’s a challenge, and it’s one we’re ready to take on. I love teaching and can’t get away from it.”

Payongayong has made coaching stops at several schools in his hometown of San Francisco, the first of which was Potrero Hill Middle School, which is known by some as O.J. Simpson’s alma mater. Payongayong volunteered there from 1988 to ‘90.

“The coach at the time told me I was the first to volunteer there in 20 years,” laughed Payongayong, who went on to coach at both Phillip And Sala Burton High and Abraham Lincoln High. “But we won a championship with that team.”

Payongayong also coached while serving as a park director at Canon Kit Community House in San Francisco, the very park where he had honed his own skills as a kid. His newest assignment - here at IPA - is perhaps his most unique to date.

Located in Kapolei, the academy opened in 2003, and by the 2005-06 school year it had 370 students enrolled in pre-K through 8. Less than 100 students are in the high school, which will graduate its first class in 2010.

Housed in a three-story structure next to the Kapolei Library, the private school has plans for a $28 million, multi-purpose facility by 2010, he said. The basketball teams, meanwhile, practice at outdoor parks in Kapolei and Makakilo, and rent gym time from the Hawaii National Guard at Barbers Point. With only freshman and sophomore grades this past school year, IPA fielded only intermediate and JV teams. But it will drop its JV team from the lineup for this season as the Navigators concentrate their efforts on a competitive varsity roster.

IPA received its first “unofficial” taste of varsity basketball this summer in Iolani Summer League as an IPA Club Team, which included players from Saint Louis School and Kapolei.

“What the Iolani league did for us was to help us play at a higher level,” said Payongayong, who has been a mechanic for United Airlines for 19 years, the last four in Honolulu. “We won three in a row near the end, and we were close in a lot of other games. Winning is a bonus - I love to win - but giving your best effort and playing the game the right way (are priorities) ... It’s about developing student athletes to become better basketball players and better people.”

IPA’s summer Club Team included Kennedy Wilson, Jackson Durrett, Sam Evans, Dylan Yamamoto, Malik Veazie, Theo Duplechain, Andrew Lee, Kyle Arazaga and Alex Vergel of IPA, Quinn Arakawa and Marcus Rodrigues of Saint Louis School, Greg Ching of Kapolei High, Joshua Sumida, who is home-schooled, and Luke Kaumatule of Kapolei Middle School.

Payongayong was assisted by Chris Veazie and Dennis Silva, a former Iolani player who also will assist him at IPA this winter.

“He and I have played against each other, and we still play in leagues together,” Payongayong said.

A defense-first attitude will prevail at IPA, the coach said.

“My motto is, you gotta play ‘D’,” he said.“In our man-to-man, the first responsibility is to stop the guy you’re guarding. The first time you let him go by you, I let it go. The second time, I say, ‘Oh, my goodness,’ and the third time, you come and sit by me (on the bench) and watch.”

For inspiration, the Navigators can look to their own coach, whose days are filled with activity. A husband and father of three children, in addition to his full-time job in the evenings for the airline, he teaches P.E. classes full-time at IPA during the day as well as coaching the boys’ varsity team.

“Within six months, I lost 20 pounds, so it’s been good for me,” he laughed. “I feel more energized.”