Hana High School surf coach Keli Everett guides his team during an MIL surf meet at Koki Beach in Hana in 2016. — BOHDI ASAY photo
Keli Everett has been a professional surfer for a couple decades, so his voice naturally carries a lot of weight with the surfers he coaches for the Hana High School team.
Everett, 42, was born and raised in Hana and was seemingly built to be the surf coach for the Dragons. The 1996 Hana High graduate has been the coach all seven years that surfing has been an official Maui Interscholastic League sport. The only other original coach is Luke Adolfson of Lahainaluna.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Everett said. “Some days are funner than others with high school kids, but besides the fun I feel it’s really rewarding, too. It kind of surprised me because I’ve been in competitive surfing — or tried to — and I’ve come to find out that I felt the best and felt rewarded from not necessarily the best kids.”
He loves to use the sport as a vessel to help kids that might not otherwise be reached.
“I felt I got the most out of it or felt the best about it was when I got a kid that wasn’t spending that much time at the beach or in the water — you know, kind of looking to get into more trouble and stuff like that,” Everett said. “And then turning them to surfing or bodyboarding, whatever it is, you can see that they want to do better in other aspects of their life because they want to surf more.”
Hana Surf coach Keli Everett (right) talks with Kaawaloa Shamblin during a recent MIL surf meet at D.T. Fleming Beach Park. — TONY de JETLY photo
Everett drives the team bus, loaded with surfboards, to all the contests. He is also one of the most knowledgeable coaches in the league.
“I’ve chased the professional career,” Everett said. “My whole life, off and on, I’ve been sponsored by different companies. I’m still sponsored today, too, and repping a clothing company. As far as making a career out of it, it never really took off that big, but I had a lot of fun, got to travel a lot, a lot of cool experiences. I love surfing.”
The competitive knowledge helps Everett converse with the judges at every MIL contest. Kim Ball, the MIL surfing founder and still co-coordinator for the sport, is impressed with Everett.
“He keeps the judges on their toes, knows the rules inside and out,” Ball said. “He has literally taken beginner surfers and made them competitive. He coached Klyde Neer, an unknown surfer, and he became the first male surfer to win both MIL shortboard and bodyboard titles (in the same season).”
Ball said the cancellation of the 2020 season due to the coronavirus pandemic after just one of five scheduled meets was a competitive blow to the young Dragons boys team.
Hana High School surfing coach Keli Everett shows his surfing ability at Koki Beach in East Maui in this photo taken in 2018. — BOHDI ASAY photo
“His 2020 team had a good chance to win their first-ever MIL surfing title before the season shut down after the Kahului Harbor contest,” Ball said. “Keli is also instrumental in having Hana’s Koki Beach be a regular venue for MIL surfing. It’s turned out to be the favorite location for coaches and competitors.
“The officials also love it because Keli’s parents group always provides lunch of fresh seared ahi for the judges.”
Chris Sanita is the current principal for Hana School and was the surf coach from 1998 to 2005 when the sport competed on a club status in the MIL. Sanita sees up close just how important the program is to the school that has fewer than 100 high school students.
“He’s really instrumental in making the practices really dynamic, from conditioning to strategy to ocean safety,” Sanita said. “And then he’s the jack of all trades for getting Hana from way over on the east side all the way to Lahaina to (D.T.) Fleming to Kahului Harbor, just all the tents, the ice chests, all of that. He’s definitely instrumental.”
Sanita also sees the value of the program to the tiny, remote school.
From left: Noah Asay, Nandi Carrano, Keli Everett, Xavier de Jetley and Bohdi Asay pose behind the pile of trash from their cleanup day at Koki Beach in 2017. — Courtesy photo
“I think it’s highly valuable because Hana, it’s very rural, very hunter-oriented, so between football and surfing, it really spans that gap,” Sanita said. “It really gets kids after school — if they’re not going to be playing a sport — he’s done a good job of getting non-surfers to surf and compete and have fun.
“He’s really open that way and makes kids (happy) and creates that sort of Ohana feeling: ‘It’s OK if you’re just starting out. Please come and have fun.’ It’s very valuable to our high school.”
Sanita added that the surf program helps keep kids in school.
“I definitely know it does,” Sanita said. “This past year before COVID shut us all down, kids really turned in work because they wanted to compete, they wanted to surf.”
Everett, who is married to Hana vice principal Jen Nadler, also coordinates two annual beach cleanups.
“Some of the kids are, like, ‘Oh really?’ But down the road they realize and I think appreciate what we’re doing,” Everett said. “I think them falling in love with the ocean really, really helps their appreciation of the environment.”
He keeps even the beach cleanups fun.
“It’s kind of like a challenge thing — I put the team into groups and then whoever gets the most trash wins ice cream or something at the next practice,” he said.
Everett was sad to see the 2020 season wiped out by the pandemic, not just because he had a stacked boys roster, but that roster has now been thrown to the wind.
“I had one from the year before and then two more this year that just were eligible for the team, but they’re some of those kids that are just right at that top of the list for groms on Maui, so they’re right there,” Everett said. “They were pretty bummed about it. You could tell because for two years before they were talking about it: ‘I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait.’
“For them it was an opportunity to hang with friends and progress and get coached by me and some of the other coaches, get more familiar with competition, stuff like that, get more exposure. So, it really was a bummer for those three or four kids. For the rest of the kids, that was more the bummer for me because I didn’t get to work with these kids and now who knows what they are doing?”
Everett is helped on the Hana coaching staff by Lipoa Kahaleuahi, a Hana alum who surfed collegiately for UC Santa Barbara, and Russell Stoner.
Kahaleuahi works for Ma Ka Hana Ka Ike, a hands-on educational training program that substitutes textbooks and classroom work with tools and job experience.
The entire package fits well in the program that Everett has built into an integral part of the Hana School landscape.
“When I started there was a lot of questions of: ‘Is it going to work?’ And ‘we doubt it’ and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “But with my background and knowing Kim (Ball) and knowing how long Kim has been doing it, it didn’t really hold me back.”
* Robert Collias is at rcollias @mauinews.com.
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