Wagner Retires As KS Hawai’i Athletic Director

April 16, 2012

Contributed by Pakalani Bello

Wagner came on as the first athletic director for KS Hawai'i at the start of the 2002-03 school year. Building an athletics program from the ground up, the Warriors won four team state titles during his tenure, three in girls basketball, in 2005, 07 and 12, and one in girls soccer, in 2008. KS Hawai'i teams have also taken home eight individual state championships and have won a total of 53 Big Island Interscholastic Federation titles, qualifying over 100 teams for state tournaments.

Along with the success on the playing fields, KS Hawai'i also won a national award in 2009 as the recipient of the "Honoring the Game Award," issued by the Positive Coaching Alliance, a national non-profit organization with the mission to provide all youth and high school athletes a positive, character-building, youth sports experience. The award was given for outstanding service to the children who participate in the schools' sports programs, integrating the school principle of pu'uhonua into the athletics program, ensuring appropriate behavior toward referees and other visitors, and having mandatory parent and student-athlete attendance in all Positive Coaching Alliance workshops.

"It has been a great honor to be the first Athletic Director at Kamehameha Hawai'i for almost 10 years now," said Wagner. "Kamehameha Schools is such a special institution with such a special mission, and to start a high school athletic program at Kamehameha Hawai'i was an exciting opportunity and a once-in-a-lifetime challenge. Our family has been thankful for this professional opportunity as well as the opportunity be able to come back home and to be a part of this special 'ohana."

Prior to his time at Kamehameha, Wagner had a successful career as a college football coach, highlighted by a nine-year run as the head coach at the University of Hawai'i. At UH, he compiled a record of 58-49-3, guiding his team to a Western Athletic Conference championship and Holiday Bowl victory in 1992, also leading his 1989 team to the Aloha Bowl, the first sanctioned bowl game in UH history. Wagner started at UH as an assistant coach for 10 years, and also had assistant coaching stints at several colleges, including Arizona and Washington.

A search for his successor will begin in a few weeks.