Chad Kauhaahaa took a leap of faith nearly two decades ago to leave his home island and, while it has led to a near-nomadic lifestyle, it has paid off.

The 1991 Baldwin High School graduate is currently the defensive line coach at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, the eighth stop on his winding road of college football coaching.

“You know what? I’m extremely happy, I’m blessed to be in the position I’m in — to be in the business this long is, like I said, it’s a true blessing,” Kauhaahaa said earlier this month on a quick visit home to Maui. “Being a college football coach isn’t as easy as people think it is. It’s a hard job to come by and I’ve been blessed to have been doing this for the last 18 years. I can’t even count how long I’ve been in it.”

He has previously coached at Weber State (2005-08), Utah State (2009-10), Utah (2011-12), Wisconsin (2013-14), Oregon State (2015-17), Boise State (2018) and Southern Cal (2019).

No less than 10 of his players have made it to the NFL, including 2013 first-round draft pick Star Lotulelei from Utah.

Kauhaahaa took a one-year sabbatical from a teaching job at Baldwin for the 2005-06 school year to try out the college coaching profession at Weber State — he was 25-5-2 as the Bears head coach from 2002-04 with two Maui Interscholastic League titles.

Wife Lena and sons Kalei, 26, and Kalena, 23, have been along for the ride the ever since.

“Crazy, man,” Kauhaahaa said. “This job, this profession has taken me all over the United States, gave me experiences for myself and my family that only a job like this could and that’s kind of why I did it. No. 1, coaching football was my passion. I enjoyed being a teacher, but I loved coaching even more.

“To have my wife and my sons to experience what college football was all about, it’s been a good journey.”

Kauhaahaa is quick to credit Lena with his chance to become a coach at the NCAA Division I level — he knows the entire process would not have been possible without her.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “When I first started in the business she was the breadwinner when I got my first coaching job. She worked two jobs and she took care of the boys, I worked day and night getting by. To this day, she still works. She hasn’t stopped working — she probably could, but she doesn’t want to. Yeah, she has a lot to do with my success.”

Las Vegas was always a dream destination for the Kauhaahaas to ultimately land as perhaps a vacation or offseason home, but now it is the current home base.

“I tell everybody this is the first city I’ve been to where I have access to all type of Hawaiian foods, Hawaiian needs for me to do my cooking,” he said. “I don’t have to go to some Asian store in the middle of Madison, Wisconsin, to see if they have certain ingredients I need to make certain dishes that I cook.”

This far into the journey, the final destination may not yet be determined on a map, but the longterm job description that Kauhaahaa has in mind is crystal clear: head coach.

He was an associate head coach for two seasons at Oregon State under Gary Andersen, but Kauhaahaa has been a defensive line coach for the entirety of his college career.

“That is the goal,” Kauhaahaa said of becoming a head coach. “A guy I worked with at Oregon State, Brent Brennan, he’s proof that you don’t have to be a coordinator, you don’t have to have been an offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator to be a head coach.

“Brent, shoot, I worked with him at Oregon State when he was the receivers coach and he went to San Jose State. You follow the Mountain West (Conference) and see what San Jose State did. There’s proof right there that it’s not necessary to be a coordinator.”

Kauhaahaa summed it up: “That’d be the ultimate goal, to be a head coach one day. I’ve had a lot of good mentors, starting with the guy who got me in the business, Ron McBride.”

Kauhaahaa, who was a standout defensive lineman at the University of Utah under McBride, has an impressive list of coaches he has learned from.

“I can go on and on, but I think just recently, you know, with a few moves I’ve had I’ve expanded my football knowledge,” he said. “In regards to learning from a guy like (Boise State’s) Brian Harsin on how to become a better teacher as a football coach, eliminating the gray. Me being able to spend some time with Harsin — it wasn’t a full year, it was about 10 months — but I took a lot away from that. I became a better teacher.

“And now I’m working with Marcus Arroyo (at UNLV) and you mentioned (Oregon’s) Mario Cristobal. Well, we have that very, very aggressive approach in recruiting, which is something new to me.”

Kauhaahaa’s learning has ramped up in just the last few years.

“I’ve been in the business for a long time, but, again, going from Boise State to now working with Marcus Arroyo at UNLV and learning new ways to teach and ways to recruit has really helped me out,” Kauhaahaa said. “It’s making me a more well-rounded person. I’ve kind of been in the same (coaching) family for a long, long time. I mentioned Ron McBride, I’ve been in this family forever.

“Even the guys I work for were tied to him, so I felt very, very comfortable with them in those programs, but when I had to leave and step outside my comfort zone, going to Boise State with Brian Harsin, or even going to USC and then now UNLV, again, I think it’s helping me professionally. I think it’s getting me ready to become a head coach one day.”

Kauhaahaa laughed when he added: “If it doesn’t work out then I can always come home and retire on Maui, but that’s the goal anyway. That’s not a bad deal either way. If I don’t become a head coach, I can become head coach of my property in Kahakuloa.”

Kauhaahaa is proud of the Maui football legacy he helped build. MIL graduates currently playing Division I college football include Joshua Tihada at UNLV, Feleti Afemui at Vanderbilt, Jared Kapisi at BYU, Hanisi Lotulelei at San Diego State and Tristan Nichols at Nevada.

“First of all, Maui football has evolved over the years,” Kauhaahaa said. “I think the coaching has also evolved. Obviously, (Lahainaluna) coach (Bobby) Watson and the gang have set the standard on the way things are supposed to be done and I think it’s elevated everybody else’s game in the league to get their teams better, so obviously fundamentally, technically for the kids it’s much different. But it starts with the coaching. I think these coaches are doing a nice job of going out and getting professionally developed by going to camps and clinics.”

Kauhaahaa will always give back to his home island whenever and however he can.

“Now that we’re in Vegas, my door is always open,” Kauhaahaa said. “Shoots, if anybody wants to come talk ball from Maui then they’re more than welcome if they’re in Vegas to stop by and visit.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.