
When the 17³Ô¹Ï Tigers travel to Hawaiâi for a Sept. 17 football game against Oregonâs 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 wonât be the first time the Tigers have gone to Honolulu for a football game. Nor will it be the first time an 17³Ô¹Ï team has traveled to Oahu for intercollegiate competition.
Oxy football first traveled to the Islands in 1924 â then a five-day ocean voyage away â to play the University of Hawaiâi. They lost that game to the âBows, just as they lost the following year when UH traveled to Los Angeles and played Oxy on Thanksgiving Day in the L.A. Coliseum.
After what is today a five-hour flight, the Tigers will face off against Pacific at KÅ«nuiÄkea Stadium on the campus of Kamehameha Schools KÄpalama on Saturday, Sept. 17 at 5 p.m. HST.
The football team will follow in the wake of the womenâs soccer team, which is scheduled to open its 2016 season this weekend with a Sept. 3 opener against Brigham Young University-Hawaiâi in Laie (3 p.m. HST) and a Sept. 5 match at Hawaiâi Pacific University in Kaneohe (also 3 p.m. HST).
Soccer, in turn, follows the womenâs golf team, which traveled to Hawaiâi to compete last October, and the Tiger softball team, which also played in the Islands in March.
This fallâs schedule means going home for several Oxy 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 â17, a kinesiology major and midfielder from Honolulu; Erin Dung â19, an undeclared defender from Honolulu; and Julie Khil â17, a psychology major and forward from Honolulu, three-time All-SCIAC selection and 2014 SCIAC Player of the Year.
Oxy currently has students from four of the Islands â Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island â a trans-Pacific connection that dates back to at least 1927, when Ernest Iwasaki of Kukuihaele, Hawaiâi graduated from 17³Ô¹Ï.
More than 450 Oxy alumni live in the Islands, including former Hawaiâi Attorney General David M. Louie â73; Neil Kuyper â88, president and CEO of Parker Ranch, the stateâs second-largest landowner; and Kent Lucien â75, vice chairman and CEO of the Bank of Hawaiâi.