Senior Spotlight is a special series highlighting standout MIL student-athletes in fall and winter sports as they reflect upon their high school careers and look toward the future. Stories will run periodically in The Maui News.

Tre Rickard was the only player to be named a Maui Interscholastic League first-team Division I All-Star in football and basketball in the 2019-20 school year.

Now, the Lahainaluna High School senior is just happy to have the opportunity to play those sports again before he graduates in May, although not in an official capacity for his school.

The 5-foot-8, 155-pound Rickard will play for a West Maui team called Next Level in a 7-on-7 football tournament in Las Vegas next month. He is also set to play in a one-day club basketball tournament at Maui Prep’s new Bozich Center next week on a team coached by Lahainaluna head coach Nick Webb.

Rickard’s senior seasons for the Lunas in each sport were officially canceled three weeks ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve still got the other side of things, I don’t try to focus on the negative as much anymore,” Rickard said Thursday.

He has decided football will be his sport in college — he was a standout all over the field for the Lunas, playing wide receiver, running back and defensive back while also returning kicks.

He is considering attending a prep school, junior college or a smaller four-year school on the Mainland. He now has a clear path knowing that his high school career is over.

“We were just waiting for an announcement like everybody else,” Rickard said. “I felt like the announcement was just holding everybody back. Now that we finally know that there’s no season I can finally look to schools now and focus more on college.”

Rickard is a name that rings through Lunas lore. Tre’s uncle Dean Rickard is the co-head coach of the Lahainaluna football team, and his father Todd Rickard is the state-championship coach of the Lunas’ girls basketball program.

Brothers Dean and Todd are both former Luna football standouts.

“My leadership and to work hard, that’s what I learned most from my dad,” Tre Rickard said. “Our relationship doesn’t really revolve around sports. He doesn’t like to put too much pressure on me about sports, kind of lets me be a kid. That’s good, it helps me a lot.”

Dean Rickard is a former college player at Chadron State College in Nebraska. He has several seniors who are college football candidates, including Tre Rickard, linemen T.J. Galoia, Hookipa Sakalia and Matai Mata’afa, and quarterback Esekielu Storer.

“Oh, definitely,” Dean Rickard said. “I mean, there have been some schools that have contacted them and shown some interest. Some of the smaller schools, some Division II schools, NAIA schools. Unfortunately I think this would have been the year for some of the kids that I mentioned, this would have been the year for them to showcase all their hard work, their skills, and their talents to attract some better offers than are currently there for them.”

After getting recent word that the basketball tournament next weekend at MPA was on, Tre Rickard has been the one senior to show up for practice on Webb’s team.

The first-year coach was thankful to have Rickard as his point guard last season. Rickard’s older brother, T.J., was an assistant to Webb for Tre’s junior season.

“He was definitely great to have — before my first year I knew of Tre here in Lahaina,” Webb said. “Watching him from the outside looking in, I always knew he was a great athlete, coming from the Rickard family and all those years on the football field and on the court.

“Then, getting to see him every day at practice, getting to see how much of a spectacular athlete he was, he is and just seeing his competition, competitive spirit in practice every day was just awesome. It was just easy to let him do his thing.”

Dean Rickard sees a lot of his younger brother in his nephew.

“He’s been a prototypical, undersized athlete,” the football coach said of Tre. “What he lacks in size he makes up for in mental attitude and never-say-quit attitude. His mentality is that as long as he puts in the work and effort he can accomplish whatever he sets his mind to.

“That’s the mentality that he’s always had in any sport that he participates in, which is what makes him successful in just about anything he does athletically. … He’s kind of a multi-versatile athlete. He’s my nephew and that being said, I still think he’s got all the ability to make it at the next level.”

Tre Rickard said he was ready to roll this season as the four-time Division II state champions in football had made the jump to Division I.

“This football season that I thought we were going to have, I was putting in a lot of work,” he said. “I got my speed better, I got way stronger, I gained more weight, so I feel like my senior season film would have grabbed the coaches’ attention. I was ready, I was ready to go.

“I gained like 15 pounds, I was getting faster, beach workouts every day, every morning — I was ready to go.”

Clearly, speed will be a big part of his football acumen in college. He will have his eye focused on a certain Kansas City Chiefs player in Super Bowl LV in a week. Rickard sees himself as a slotback in college.

“I watch a lot of Tyreek Hill because he’s a small guy in the NFL,” Tre Rickard said. “I do a lot of film on him and see how he gets off the line, press coverages and that kind of stuff.”

The beach workouts have augmented his speed and agility, as has playing three different seasons in the Maui Flag Football League with the Next Level team coached by Cliffane Casco.

“Straight out of when we came out when we thought football was going to start (in the fall), I was in the best shape of my life, but now I’m working back up to it again,” Tre Rickard said. “It’s pretty hard to go from basketball (workouts) to football — I will get there again.”

The Next Level team will include Rickard and Storer, as well as fellow Lunas Justin Deleon and Treven Tihada. It could be a key opportunity to demonstrate some of the skills Rickard was counting on showing during his senior football season.

“It’s pretty good because it will, like, show how I improved being a catcher, slot receiver, my speed, my strength, just show how much improvement I gained over the last year,” he said. “They call it Pylon 7on7, it’s nationwide, there’s leagues all around. ”

While the Las Vegas tournament is coming up soon, another trip to Utah for a similar event in April is also tentatively planned.

“It’s going to be super fun, I can’t wait,” Rickard said. “Me and my friends are all excited, my teammates, we’re just ready to go.”

It won’t make up for missed senior seasons, but it will help mend the hurt.

“It’s something, for sure,” Rickard said. “It just sucks that we don’t get to play with our lineman and tackle, but it is something good.”

And he will miss the fans of Luna Nation.

“The fans are a big part of what I’m going to miss,” Rickard said. “The community and everybody is just close together, how everybody knows each other — that’s what I’m going to miss about not playing in front of them over time.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com