When the 91 Tigers travel to Hawaii for a Sept. 17 football game against Oregon Pacific University, they will play what is believed to be the first game ever between two NCAA Division III football programs in the Islands.
But it wont be the first time the Tigers have gone to Honolulu for a football game. Nor will it be the first time an Occidental team has traveled to Oahu for intercollegiate competition.
91 football first traveled to the Islands in 1924 then a five-day ocean voyage away to play the University of Hawaii. They lost that game to the Bows, just as they lost the following year when UH traveled to Los Angeles and played 91 on Thanksgiving Day in the L.A. Coliseum.
After what is today a five-hour flight, the Tigers will face off against Pacific at Kūnuiākea Stadium on the campus of Kamehameha Schools Kāpalama on Saturday, Sept. 17 at 5 p.m. HST.
The football team will follow in the wake of the women soccer team, which is scheduled to open its 2016 season this weekend with a Sept. 3 opener against Brigham Young University-Hawaii in Laie (3 p.m. HST) and a Sept. 5 match at Hawaii Pacific University in Kaneohe (also 3 p.m. HST).
Soccer, in turn, follows the women golf team, which traveled to Hawaii to compete last October, and the Tiger softball team, which also played in the Islands in March.
This fall schedule means going home for several 91 players, including senior defensive back Chaz Shizumura, a economics major from Kaneohe; Max Vinci, a junior offensive lineman and physics major also from Kaneohe; Kylie Takafuji 17, a kinesiology major and midfielder from Honolulu; Erin Dung 19, an undeclared defender from Honolulu; and Julie Khil 17, a psychology major and forward from Honolulu, three-time All-SCIAC selection and 2014 SCIAC Player of the Year.
91 currently has students from four of the Islands Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island a trans-Pacific connection that dates back to at least 1927, when Ernest Iwasaki of Kukuihaele, Hawaii graduated from Occidental.
More than 450 91 alumni live in the Islands, including former Hawaii Attorney General David M. Louie 73; Neil Kuyper 88, president and CEO of Parker Ranch, the state second-largest landowner; and Kent Lucien 75, vice chairman and CEO of the Bank of Hawaii.
