Hawaii Warriors Football: One Team, One Dream

Well here we are, Warriors faithful, nearing the end of this magical 2007 season.

We all knew from the day Colt Brennan announced that he'd return for his senior year that we were going to be in for a dream ride.

We knew it was going to be a season to look forward to, but could we even imagine the opportunity that's staring right at us?

Nine years ago, we knew that we had something special brewing with June Jones. Now it's coming to fruition.

A win over Washington will not only help the Warriors complete what they started nearly three months ago, it'll bring something once unimaginable to the 50th State: a shot, just a shot, at immortality.

Immortal in that we could be witnesses of something that our mothers and fathers may not have had a chance to partake in. Something that you could only dream about as a kid. Something that we all see ourselves being a part of, even though we are not physically on the field.

We've realized our Championship, now we have a chance to realize our very Destiny.

It has to be Destiny right?

• Surviving a mud bog at San Jose and a scare from a very determined Spartan team.
  

• Agonizing through a game we clearly weren't ready for in Louisiana and pulling out the victory over a Bulldog team that did everything they could to steal the glass slipper.

•  Overcoming a sloppy game with a hobbled Colt in Idaho because our defense decided that it was their time.
  

• Watching, over and over, a vicious hit on the Son of Hawai'i against rival Fresno State, yet pulling together just long enough to seize victory.
  

• Seeing our very special back-up quarterback do something not even Colt Brennan was able to accomplish in his record shattering college career—a win in Reno.

• Finally! An Outright WAC Championship over a Boise State team that has been the class and dictator of the Western Athletic Conference.

Winning the way we did earlier in the season helped build a few things you can't coach: Character, Camaraderie and Chemistry.

This team is as complete a team as there is in the nation. They are all brothers and they are literally one for all and all for one.

People can go their whole lives and never truly have the feeling this team is overflowing with. It's so powerful, it's engulfed the State of Hawai'i with a feeling that can only be described as a "glow". People on our roadways are a little bit nicer, bosses are a little less bossy, wives are a bit more understanding, friends in football are finding a closer bond to their fellow brothers and sisters.

How appropriate that all this is happening around the Christmas Season. The Season known for family, love, and sacrifice is not only taking a foothold with everyone in the State, it's also being personified in our beloved Warriors.

Come Saturday, the Warriors will strap it up like they have the eleven other games this season and attempt to complete the dreams of an entire State in 60 minutes of football.

But that isn't the big picture.

The big picture is what these young men have taught us about what a family really should be.

The most beloved figure right now in the State of a Hawai'i is a Haole boy from California, who took classes to learn how to speak Samoan to communicate better with his linemen, has a receiving corp made up primarily of four very talented African-American young men, and a rotation in the backfield consisting of a mix plate of running backs from Washington, California and two different Hawaiian Islands.

A defense that spans the vast Pacific Ocean, from Pago Pago, American Samoa to Nevada. From Georgia to Oklahoma to Down Under, Bangor, Australia.

This team encompasses what Hawai'i is truly all about, a melting pot of Aloha. 115 men from all corners of the globe, working together as a unit, and seeking perfection.

And that is something that only one team in the United States of America can say.