Ko’o Kia reflects on a Junior season in which he led his team to an ILH championship and #2 rank in the State. Following that, the three-Star linebacker committed to Notre Dame on Jan 15th of 2024. After 5 games this season, Kia has accounted for 44 solo tackles (including 9 for loss) as well as 4 pass break-ups.
Q: What got you into football in the first place?
Kia: It was always in the house. My dad and my older brother (who is currently playing football at Notre Dame) both played football and one day I just wanted to play. I started playing flag football in first grade and tackle football in fourth grade.
Q: Let’s talk about your dad. Lots of legacy there, he was an all-conference player at Utah and won a state championship here at Punahou. What has he instilled in you and what is it like having your dad as a head coach?
Kia: One thing about him is that although he was very successful, he never pushed anything on me growing up. He always wanted playing football to come from me truly wanting and loving it. As for the experience of having him as the Varsity head coach, he definitely is harder on me at practice, and it doesn’t end on the field. Coming home, he is always talking to me about what I could improve on. But overall, it’s been good to have someone who’s done it before helping me through the process.
Ko’o Kia posted 27.5 tackles with 6 sacks in a season where he was named to the ILH open division first team for the second year in a row, including a team-second 5.5 tackles to go along with a sack in their state semifinal loss to Kahuku.
Q: These past couple years have been a couple of big seasons for the team, undoubtedly one of the premier teams in the league as the state runner-up and semi finalist. What has been the secret for you guys?
Kia: I think all the success these past few years can be attributed to selflessness. Everyone on the team not being selfish and putting the team first in training and everything else. We put in so much work in the Off-seasons. But when we came up short, it was very hard because of all of that.
Q: Last season didn’t end the way you wanted. But looking on the bright side, what was your favorite part of that season or any memories with the guys that stand out?
Kia: Even though we lost, I would say that our game against Kahuku was a special moment for me because that group was built of all the guys that I had been playing football with since middle school. That was my last game with a lot of them, and regardless of the result it’s something that I will remember for a long time.
Kia chose to commit to Notre Dame after receiving offers from multiple high-level D1 programs, including Oregon, Texas, Michigan State, USC, and more.
Q: You are a highly touted D1 recruit. Give me some insight on what the recruit process is like?
Kia: I would describe it as a process that is very—uncertain. You have to put in all the work, but at the end of the day, they see you and they like you, or they see you and they don’t. It’s certainly difficult to navigate. Plus, when you are doing well in the recruiting process there’s a lot of hype surrounding you, and I always just try to drown that out.
Q: NIL? What are your experiences and perspectives surrounding that?
Kia: It’s definitely something big. For all the places that I was considering, there were built in NIL deals for all scholarship players. Something funny is that a few of their pitches have included talking about the local KIA dealerships, and they’ll say things like, “there’s no way we can’t make that happen, it’s too easy.” Yeah, it’s certainly interesting. NIL is very new right now so it’s kind of wild at the moment. There’s not too many rules.
Q: What made you choose Notre Dame?
Kia: The biggest thing for me is life after football. As much as I love football—and I love it so much—it ends at one point. People stop playing when they are 30, maybe Mid-20s, and you still have so much of your life left to live after that. There are a lot of great football programs, and Notre Dame is one of them, but out of all the schools I felt that Notre Dame would set me up the best outside of that.
Q: Last question. Anything you want to say to the people?
Kia: Love everyone! Even those who don’t love you.