TO:
RCH FROM: COACH BENNETT 10/7/01
This
is such a special place. For 32 years I came to this Chapel every week. It was
my refuge for good and bad times - there were many of both!
We
lost a wonderful former Chaplain David Steele to cancer just a couple of months
ago. What an inspiration he was, and now we’re here because we've lost a true
son of Punahou. What I know for sure is that this Chapel has always allowed its
participants to connect or re-connect in the spirit of forgiveness and under
one God. In this Chapel good always triumphed over hate, acceptance over
discrimination, pluralism over fundamentalism. RCH Lee surely embodied these
higher values!
For
those who have had the opportunity and luxury to participate in competitive
athletics, there are always defining moments, vivid memories taking us back to
days of our youth, our health and strength and pride and sheer joy and
happiness -the building blocks if you will for going forward each day no matter
what. Thank you Buddy Lee for allowing me to share two such memories -both of
course "authored, produced, directed, and played" by RCH Lee -
memories
very special to the Punahou Athletic Community and now RCH to your friends and
loved ones around the world.
Punahou’s
dean of soccer coaches, Bob Clague, can still remember the 1986 mud bowl state
final soccer game against arch rival Iolani at Moanalua High School. By the
time the championship
game
was played that night, it was almost impossible to tell the teams apart. Too
much rain and too many games at Moanalua made this literally a Mud Bowl.
"True Grit” RCH Lee was apparently
undaunted
by these conditions and somehow came up from his full- back position during a
corner kick scramble to knock in the winning goal for the state title!! Talk
about coming through under pressure, out of position, risking all -sounds just
like RCH -wow! But how could anybody be that surprised??!! Had we
forgotten the 1985 football game against eventual prep bowl champion Pac-5??! !
Shame on us! !!
Punahou's
head football coach Mike Pavich had a miracle up his sleeve that day -named RCH
Lee of course. Now, forget about all those St. Louis football titles for a
minute! In 1985 Pac-5 was the team -Garrett Gabriel and Company.
Pac-5's dean of Hawaii’s
football
coaches Don “Spud" Botelho had his Wolfpack playing on all cylinders that
year, except for one Halloween afternoon at Aloha Stadium.
Punahou’s
coach Pavich had worked the mental game all week about how "no way could a
team wearing orange beat the Buff’n Blue on Halloween!!! Apparently RCH Lee
listened/agreed, because even as a defensive lineman (or was that a disguise)
RCH intercepted a Gabriel pass on the one yard line and sprinted, lumbered,
stumbled 99 yards the other way for the winning touch down. Even Gabriel couldn't
catch him and Coach Botelho was so flabbergasted as RCH ran down his sideline,
he almost jumped out to tackle RCH himself!!!!
Punahou won that game vis-a-vis the Lee Heist; the only game Pac-5 lost that year. Some say that Doss Tannehill, RCH’s defensive line coach, A.K.A Oculist, fitted RCH with special eyes that day; but the speed factor could only have come from the soccer genes so evident in all the Lee brothers! !
So if anyone still wonders why we teach and coach, tell them it's because of the RCH Lee’s in our lives who step up, step out, to lead us, to teach us the meaning of living life to the fullesto.
ALOHA R C H from all of us.