William Wainui Jr. was known to everyone as Uncle Boogie.

He meant just about everything to Na Kai Ewalu Canoe Club as an early member and veteran head coach who also held just about every other position available in the Kahului Harbor-based club.

He died on June 3 at the age of 77.

Nine days later, hundreds of paddlers from around the Maui County Hawaiian Canoe Association gathered at the harbor to honor Uncle Boogie, who seemingly always had a smile for everyone.

“He really wanted nothing, that’s why what happened down at the canoe club was just overwhelming for me,” his wife of 54 years Sandy Wainiui said Wednesday. “It showed the love and respect for him. They did ask our permission and we did say we would come down, but we weren’t going to handle any of the things. It was up to whoever.”

Boogie Wainui got his nickname as a toddler.

“The story that he told me was that a little old Hawaiian lady — he was always dancing and she called him ‘Boogie Woogie,’ ” Sandy Wainui said. “He liked to Boogie Woogie and the Boogie just stuck.”

Boogie Wainui was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1941 and moved to Molokai when he was 5 or 6 years old, according to his widow.

He grew up with paddling — his father William Wainui Sr. was the steersman on the winning crew in the first Molokai Hoe in 1952, according to Sandy Wainui.

“And the funny thing is when they got to the beach (in Waikiki) at whatever hotel it was they would not serve them drinks — they took them into the kitchen and gave them milk,” Sandy Wainui said. “I’m not sure why. I picked that up in one of the canoe books.”

Na Kai Ewalu Canoe Club began in 1972 and Boogie Wainui joined in 1973. In later years, Boogie Wainui could always be found sitting on the lanai of the NKE hale as regattas went on in front of him, watching and mostly silently smiling all the while.

“He had a great love for the kids,” Sandy Wainui said. “That was his deal really, was the kids. His philosophy and mine was, ‘It’s good to win, it’s wonderful to win, but not at all costs.’ They’re kids and No. 1 for him was they should be having fun. That was what drove him.”

Zac Bailey has been with NKE for 39 years — he is a former keiki coach and board member for the club.

“I was with the club since my teens and Uncle Boogie kind of brought me up,” Bailey said Wednesday. “My family is from here, but Uncle Boogie for a lot of us was kind of a surrogate dad, coach, just mentor. That was an important thing for me growing up.”

Bailey also worked with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to attain grants for the club’s new koa canoe — they lost their hale and koa canoes in a fire several years ago — which Wainui was helping to build within the last two years of his life.

Bailey spoke at the paddle-out flower lei ceremony on June 12.

“It is said that the measure of a man or a woman is made by the people they care for and that care for them,” Bailey said to begin his thoughts that day. “In Uncle Boogie we can see and feel how much he truly cared for all of us, how much we cared for him, and how he has made the opportunity for us to care for one another.”

Owen Seki, the current NKE head coach, always sought out Wainui first on every regatta Saturday.

“Uncle Boogie, oh man, I met him about 15 years ago, 2006 I think it was,” Seki said. “I had a friend who paddled for Uncle Boogie, that’s how I got hooked up with him. That old man, I met him the first week I moved to Maui and he invited me over to his house for a beer because I didn’t know a whole lot of people. As far as everything else, we sometimes had some differences of opinion, but he helped me become so in tune with everything,

“He has helped me grow so much as a coach. I feel like the more I began to understand paddling and what it’s about, I’d go to Uncle Boogie more often. He’s my go-to guy — every regatta day I go to him every time. I just can’t believe that he’s not going to be there next time.”

Boogie Wainui was a shipping clerk for Young Brothers for 40 years — from 1964 to 2003 — but it was coaching where he light shined brightest. At one time or another, he coached T-ball and women’s volleyball on Molokai before moving to Maui in 1970 — he also coached soccer on Maui, including one season as an assistant at Baldwin High School.

“Coaching was in his blood,” Sandy Wainui said. “He had really good relationships with coaches, not only on Maui, but on all the other islands. … He was an ambassador for paddling.”

Keone Ball is the current president of Maui County Hawaiian Canoe Association and had known Wainui since he was 7 years old.

“He and Mike Adams are building a koa canoe for us right now,” Ball said. “Mike and Uncle Boogie were down there three days a week — Boogie worked on it until he couldn’t. He was like a second dad to me. When I was a youth I went more places with Uncle Boogie that I did with my own parents.

“There’s all these stories that are coming out and all of us who paddled as youths, we kind of all had the same story — we always would stay at Uncle Boogie’s house before the race. It was like a great thing to be able to stay there, stay the night, then we’d all pile in the truck and go to the regatta. It was such a great memory for so many people.”

Boogie Wainui was on the committee that wrote the original race rules for the MCHCA in the 1970s, “so he knew his race rules,” Sandy said.

Among his many accomplishments, Wainui coached several men’s crews in the Molokai Hoe; he coached an NKE crew in the first Na Wahine O Ke Kai; he worked to start a Na Opio paddling program on Maui for keiki paddlers; he led NKE to two MCHCA titles; in the 1980s he took a took a group of 30 NKE paddlers to Tahiti for the Bastille Day race; he took a group of NKE paddlers to California for an event that was a forerunner of the World Sprints, in 1984; he coached a crew that raced from Hana to the Big Island; he started the Challenge Cup fundraiser for NKE and ran it for 30 years; he coached Maui High School one year, Kamehameha Maui for 10 years and Baldwin for two years in MIL paddling; and he was given honorary lifetime membership to NKE in 1999.

“Then he retired and turned it over to younger people,” Sandy Wainui said. “But he was always there to help whenever needed. He slowly eased out of coaching. He still came down and helped everybody — he couldn’t go out completely. He had to be there.”

The unofficial “Manini Race” session that precedes the official start for every MCHCA regatta is perhaps the one accomplishment of her husband that Sandy Wainui remembers the most. It is where the kids who have not reached the official racing age of 12 get their start in outrigger canoe paddling before the official regatta day begins.

“The last time I was at a regatta I think there were 30 manini paddlers in the water — he started that program many years ago for the smallest paddlers,” Sandy Wainui said. “He wanted every kid to have the chance to race. He was always thinking and trying to make things better.”

Boogie Wainui is survived by Sandy, children Kiersten Wainui Jedlicka, Robin Wainui and Lloyd Wainui, seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com