Navy quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada needed a 5,100-mile trip from Hawaii to Rhode Island to realize his life was no longer a day at the beach.
“It really hit me when I first walked into the building,” he said of his first day at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport. “People were flying around, and I had a chief yelling at me. I was like, ‘Wow, this is real.’ ”
And if it wasn’t real enough then, it certainly was several hours later when he traded his 5-inch-long locks for the Navy-mandated buzz cut.
“When I got here, I realized my hair was a lot longer than I thought,” he said with a laugh.
It was a steep learning curve for the 22-year-old, who will lead the Midshipmen in one final football contest this Saturday against Wake Forest at the EagleBank Bowl at Washington’s RFK Stadium.
“It seems like almost every day you wake up and think, ‘What am I doing here?’” he said. “But at the end of the day, you [realize] it’s more than just me and what I want. You are here for a reason — to serve your country and become a leader and an officer. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and guys around you who will push you through it.”
For Kaheaku-Enhada, that means playing through a partially torn left hamstring, which at times this season has been so painful it’s forced him to the bench.
“I don’t think this is the senior year he expected,” Midshipmen Coach Ken Niumatalolo said. “He tried to come back, and even when he did, he wasn’t where he wanted to be. But I am most proud he played his best game against Army.”
Kaheaku-Enhada, who started his Navy career at receiver, will end it as one of the most successful quarterbacks in school history. He was vital in the Midshipmen extending their school-record winning streak over Army to seven games and for keeping the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy at Navy for the sixth straight year. (The Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy is given annually to the winner of the round-robin football competition among Navy, Army and Air Force.)
But after he graduates in May with a degree in general science, he’ll trade his helmet and shoulder pads for a flak jacket and gun, as he’ll be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marines.
He wants to be at the point of attack, on the front line, taking the fight to the opposition — just as he does on the football field. He’s unfazed that he could join the more than 4,200 Americans who have died in Iraq.
“I look forward to doing something that not many people get a chance to do,” he said. “It’s something that needs to be done, and someone needs to do it — I think that I can do it.”
