Pu‘u-Robinson grateful, thrilled to be part of UH coaching staff
Former KSM, Baldwin standout now graduate assistant under Chang

Jordan Pu‘u-Robinson is shown during a University of Hawaii football practice last season. Pu‘u-Robinson is entering his second season as a graduate assistant with the Rainbow Warriors. — UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII ATHLETICS photo
Jordan Pu’u-Robinson is doing precisely what he wants to be doing, in the exact place he wants to do it.
The former Kamehameha Schools Maui, Baldwin High School, Washington State and University of Hawaii defensive line standout is a graduate assistant football coach for the Rainbow Warriors. Now working for head coach Timmy Chang, Pu’u-Robinson is a holdover from the Todd Graham regime last season.
He left a lucrative job in the laundry business on Maui a little less than two years ago.
“It was the best decision I ever made,” Pu’u-Robinson said. “I love football, I love developing young kids. It’s a lot of fulfillment in seeing a kid develop, you know, as a person, as an athlete. I love being here at the University of Hawaii because this is home. I grew up a huge fan when I was a kid and I was fortunate enough to play here and represent the state.
“And now that I’m back here coaching, it feels like it’s more than just a job. I feel like I’m serving the state and the program, which there’s extra benefits to that and so I really do love being here.”

UH graduate assistant Jordan Pu‘u-Robinson serves as scout team quarterback on the road at Nevada last season. — UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII ATHLETICS photo
He had nothing but good words for Graham, who resigned in January after two tumultuous seasons in Manoa.
“I love coach Graham, our individual relationship I thought was really good, he is a great, accomplished coach,” Pu’u-Robinson said. “The eight months that I was with him, I learned so much. I would not give up that experience for anything else.
“He is an intense guy, he will tell you himself that he strains his staff, you don’t work normal coaching hours, probably a little more excessive. But as a G.A. coming up in the business I could not ask for a better experience. He has, I believe, nine FBS/FCS head coaches right now.”
Pu’u-Robinson is also grateful to Chang for keeping him on staff.
“I was very happy and very blessed to stay on staff with coach Chang,” Pu’u-Robinson said. “I love coach Chang, he has done a great job so far. When he was hired there was instantaneous energy. I believe in this state and I believe in our players.
“There’s a rejuvenation back in the program and I think he really understands what the priorities and is emphasizing the right things that it takes to coach at the University of Hawaii because it’s a very unique place. It’s a job like no other.”
JPR spent his first three years of high school at Kamehameha Maui before transferring to Baldwin, where he graduated from in 2009. He spent three years at WSU, from fall 2009 to spring 2012, and then transfered to UH, where he played three more seasons.
After graduating from UH in 2015, Pu’u-Robinson went to Australia with former Rainbow Warrior teammate Scott Harding, an Australian.
“He was a good friend of mine and what he was doing was trying to start a little football academy in Melbourne, Australia,” Pu’u-Robinson said. “I basically lived with him for a year, I helped him get that going.”
He then moved home to Maui and worked in commercial laundry and linen supply, but it wasn’t long before his desire to coach couldn’t be ignored.
“When I was 28, that’s when I decided I had that itch and that fire for football and I wanted to get back into it,” Pu’u-Robinson said. “I had always thought about being a coach — I was advised that it’s a tough life and you sacrifice all this family time, but I just always had that itch.
“So, one day I just decided to go to footballscoop(.com) and there was a volunteer opening at Mercer University in Georgia, an FCS school. It was the first thing on the page at the time I looked and I applied and about three, four months later I got the job.”
He moved to Georgia in May 2020 and got to coach two seasons in less than a year when the FCS played a spring and fall season in 2021 after the fall 2020 season was postponed due to COVID-19.
In the spring of 2021, “there was an opportunity to come here to Hawaii,” Pu’u-Robinson said. “I came as a volunteer and a G.A. spot opened up about a month later and I have been a G.A. since then, defensive line G.A.”
To be a G.A., Pu’u-Robinson has to be enrolled in a graduate program at UH. He is in the kinesiolgy/rehab science program.
Under Chang, Pu’u-Robinson will also help with Maui recruiting and while he can’t publicly talk about the talent he is currently looking at here, he said he is excited about the assignment. His college career lasted six seasons because of a long list of injuries and at just 30 years old, he feels he can relate to the current kids.
He played for Paul Wulff and Mike Leach at Washington State, and Norm Chow at UH. He has now coached under three different head coaches as he enters his third full year on the job.
“I think that one thing in my playing career that really helped me is I played for six years under three head coaches, at four different positions on both sides of the ball,” he said. “My learning experience in terms of schematics and fundamentals and techniques as a player was so wide spread I got a pretty good, broad sense of how football is played in the box.”
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com