The Hawaii Tsunami: American Soccer's Best Kept Secret

As a blog that mostly focuses on the lesser covered nations in the Concacaf region, the United States is not a place I get to talk about too often. As MLS continues to grow in size and in popularity, it's sometimes easy to forget that the US has its own bottomless supply of interesting teams and stories to tell. The USL Championship today has 36 teams, and it's 2nd Division adds another 12. The third tier, which was formerly called the PDL, has about another 80. There's a lot of history there that is seldom spoken about.

And while the USL divisions today are beginning to stabilize (and hopefully will remain stable through the current crisis), lots of minor league clubs pop up and fold as quickly as they appeared. So often while surfing Wikipedia I see the names of teams I wish I could know more about: The Jackson Chargers from Mississippi, the New Orleans Riverboat Gamblers, and countless others.

But the one team that had always stuck out to me more than any other was the Hawaii Tsunami, a professional team based in Honolulu that played four seasons in the USISL from 1994 to 1997. For the unitiated, that's the United States Interregional Soccer League, and also the United States International Soccer League, and also the United Systems of Independent Soccer Leagues. They loved changing the name but keeping the acronym. Eventually it became the United Soccer Leagues (USL), and now finally has settled on the singular United Soccer League.

"Hottest League/Coolest Teams"

The Tsunami were the second professional soccer team on the islands, after a failed attempt at a franchise during the 1977 NASL season. They played four seasons and had one great year in 1995; reaching the Sizzlin' Nine (yes, that's really the name) playoffs and bowing out in group play. And, without some digging, that is nearly all you'll ever find out about them online. No pictures, no club logo, almost absolutely nothing.

So of course, I did some digging. I found some interesting articles. I read a book on Hawaiian sports history. I even tracked down David Trifonovitch, a former player and coach for the Tsunami who was kind enough to answer all of my questions. Here's my expanded history of the Hawaii Tsunami, America's forgotten club:

The club joined the USISL for the 1994 season with a side consisting entirely of local players and coaches. With a limited talent pool compared to the mainland clubs and a grueling travel schedule that prevented the team from ever truly being at full strength away from the islands, things were tough. The team went 3-15, finishing 8th out of 10 teams in the USISL's Pacific Division.  It wasn't a great start, but the season laid the foundation for greater things to come.

Before the 1995 season, the USISL split its outdoor season into two leagues: The Pro League and the Premier League. The Pro League was, naturally, for professionals, while the Premier League was for amateurs and college kids during their summer offseason. The Tsunami were placed in the professional division, but there weren't many pros on the team. The meager salaries offered in 1994 were mostly returned by the players to help fund the 1995 season, and most of the budget during the club's second year was invested in coaching.

Enter Andrew Rowley, a man who was well-connected in the soccer world of Central California, and was brought across the Pacific to guide the 1995 Tsunami through the newly formed Northwest Division. If it sounds like spending most of your money on a coach rather than players sounds like a bad idea, think again. One of Rowley's first moves was to recruit veteran goalkeeper and Bay Area friend Mark Dougherty, who was waiting for MLS to start up in 1996 and had one season to fill. Dougherty would go on to be the 7th overall pick in the inaugural MLS draft and was by all accounts one of the best goalies in the country at the time.

Dougherty was brought on board as a player/coach, and he and Rowley successfully recruited numerous other top players who were waiting for MLS, including forwards Billy Thompson and Peter Woodring, who both had European experience and would go on to play for the USMNT. They also landed Samuel Ekemé, who played for Cameroon at the 1994 World Cup, and Victor N'Dip Akem, who played for Cameroon at both the 1990 and 1994 World Cups.

Suddenly, the team of Hawaiian locals was now packed with international stars, and the results on the pitch were what you would expect. The Tsunami finished the 1995 season comfortably in first place in the Northwest Division, going 18-2 with a +54 goal differential. They were a perfect 10-0 at home during the regular season, and improved to 11-0 with a 2-0 win at Aloha Stadium in the divisional final against the Salem Surge.

The Tsunami played games at venues around Oahu, and on occasion on other islands such as Kauai, with many matches taking place at high school stadiums. But when possible, the club played at the 50,000 seat Aloha Stadium, arguably the nicest venue in the league. But that alone wasn't the only reason the club enjoyed a home field advantage: while road trips were grueling for the Tsunami, trips to the islands for other teams were naturally just as difficult.

In addition to the long flight, the conditions of Hawaii proved challenging for the outsiders. Mark Dougherty once suggested that the team's opponents, who routinely showed up sunburned, couldn't resist goofing off at the beach before games instead of preparing. Hawaii native David Trifonovitch says while he doesn't know for sure that the opposition were out at the beach, even a day of practicing in the Hawaiian sun would be enough to leave most visitors burned and exhausted.

This dominant home form coupled with near equal dominance on the mainland saw the Tsunami qualify for the Sizzlin' Nine, the national stage of the USISL playoffs. Here the Tsunami dropped both games in group play, the first on penalties to the hometown New York Fever, and the second 2-0 to the eventual runners-up Minnesota Thunder. Though they didn't capture a national title, the team was well recognized for their efforts. Rowley won the Northwest Coach of the Year Award, while Billy Thompson was named Offensive MVP. Ekemé won Defensive Player of the Year. Dougherty and midfielder Sterling Wescott were also named to the All-Northwest XI.

All four players, as well as Woodring and midfielder Josh McKay, would go straight to MLS in 1996. Trifonovitch, one of the club's biggest local stars, retired to focus on coaching at the high school level. Jerry Proctor, another local star from Pearl City, returned for a third year.

In 1996, the USISL reformatted its leagues again, creating the Select League, which was one tier above the Pro League. The Tsunami stayed put in the USISL Pro League, which thanks to the addition of MLS and the Select League, was now the third tier of American soccer. Thus, despite the mass exodus of the team's best players, the club was still able to hold its own.

The quality of the league had dropped, and this time around when the Tsunami fielded a mostly local team they found themselves quite up to the challenge, going 10-6 en route to a first place finish in the Western Conference. Proctor lead the team with 7 goals and 7 assists. Luis Orellana had a team high 9 goals.

After a sluggish start, the team won 7 of their final 8 matches to lock up a home playoff game for the second consecutive year. This time around, playing at Cooke Field on the campus of the University of Hawaii rather than Aloha Stadium, they were eliminated in the first round by the Everett Bigfoot. It would be the final playoff game in Tsunami history.

The 1997 season saw the departure of Rowley and the return of Trifonovitch, this time as head coach. The league had once again been renamed, this time as the USISL D-3 Pro League, and the Tsunami set out for a third straight regular season title. But the team would finish just 5-11, as financial troubles continued to mount and the league itself went through a rough stretch as it continued to lose top players to MLS. Trifonovitch said of the '97 season:

"That fourth year was pretty 'bush league' as they say. There were lots of players just trying to hurt other players and numerous fights in the games. I even had to put my credit card down and pay for hotel rooms on one of the road trips. We showed up at the team hotel in Oakland after a game and I was told the rooms were not paid for. I took over an hour to get in touch with someone from the host team and they said we booked the rooms for you but we cannot pay for them. That expense eventually came out of my salary for coaching the team. It was just another nail in the coffin that ended the Tsunami."

And sadly, that is where the story ends, with the Tsunami folding after the 1997 season. In just four years the franchise had gone through some tremendous ups and downs, and had successfully launched the careers of many future MLS players. Exact roster data for each year is not available, so it is difficult to track down exactly who played for the Tsunami and when, but it is likely that a handful of others not mentioned here eventually found their way to MLS or a different top flight for a cup of coffee at some point.

Oh, and how could I not talk about the jerseys? These are some serious heat! A simple design but that blue and white color scheme is oh so good.

As I mentioned above, David was able to answer a TON of questions for me, some of which don't neatly fit into the narrative of the story. He also kindly provided all of the images used in this post. For more info on the nitty-gritty details of the Tsunami and soccer in Hawaii in general, here is the rest of the interview:

Tim: How many years were you part of the Tsunami as a player, and how many as a coach? Were you ever both at the same time?
David: I was part of the team for three out of four years. I played on the team the first two years. Quit playing for them the third year and then was hired to be the coach for the 4th year.

Tim: How popular is soccer in Hawaii in general? Do you think the Tsunami helped grow the game around the state or was the passion already there?
David: Soccer is the number one participation sport for kids in the state of Hawaii. The love for the game was in a great growth period during the Tsunami years and I think the Tsunami definitely helped fuel the passion for the game.

Tim: Even though there’s no more pro soccer in Hawaii, you’re still very involved in the game today. What exactly are you doing now?
David: I am the Director of Coaching for a club called FC Hawaii, I am the vice chairman of the board for the Oahu League, which is the largest youth soccer league in the state affiliated with USYSA, and I am also on the Hawaii Youth Soccer Association (HYSA) board and head varsity boys coach and program director at Punahou School.

Tim: How was the travel for the Tsunami? Were there some players who couldn’t make the away dates and only played at home?
David: We were sponsored by Hawaiian Airlines, and it was always a pleasure to travel with them. We would leave on a Thursday, play games Friday and Sunday and return on Mondays. It wasn’t very easy due to the time difference of three hours between the islands and the west coast, but we knew it was something we couldn’t use as an excuse. All the players in the first year worked other jobs either full or part time, so some, who couldn’t get away with missing 3 days of work, would have to pick and choose what trips they could make. I think everyone on the team made at least one road trip.

Tim: What was the media coverage of the time like? Were any matches/interviews broadcast on TV or radio or was it just newspapers? 
David: The media did a pretty good job. We were mostly covered through the local papers but sometimes got TV sports news interviews. They would sometimes send a cameraman to the games to get some highlights for the late evening and next-day sports news.

Tim: So if there was a little media coverage around the league was there any sort of scouting your opponents beforehand or was it basically flying blind until the second and third time you played them?
David: The first year was completely blind. We had no idea who we were playing and being it was an all local team with local coaches, there was no information on our opponents. The second year, Andrew and Mark had contacts and friends within the league that gave us some information on teams and players to watch for. In the 4th year when I was coaching, we were pretty much blind again. I could only rely on information from some of the mainland players that were playing with us to tell me about friends on other teams.