Although Cal Lee has been here before during this second of three stints as coach at Saint Louis School, the First Hawaiian Bank Division I state football tournament has quite a different feel.

Across the room at Sunday's pre-tournament meeting at Aloha Stadium was his nephew, Pohai Lee, Baldwin's first-year coach. His father, Tommy Lee, is the older brother to Cal. On another side is Kahuku's first-year coach Vavae Tata, who played for Cal Lee before there ever was an official state tournament. Tata was an all-state defensive lineman and played for three Oahu Prep Bowl championship teams, the precursor of the state tournament.

"I'm so happy for them," Cal Lee said of his nephew and former player. "My nephew struggled early. The way he's ended up, you have to feel so happy for him. (I'm happy) for Vae,..to do what he's done (leading Kahuku to the OIA title)."

Cal Lee, the winningest coach in Hawaii high school history at 253-37-5 and counting, coached in the first three state tournaments from 1999 to 2001, winning the inaugural championship. Cal Lee is in his 23^rd season as a high school coach (1972, 1982 to 2001 and 2014 to present). Among the state tournament coaches, only Lahainaluna's Robert Watson has been at it longer, logging in his 27^th season, albeit the past eight as co-coach with Garret Tihada.

What connects Pohai Lee and Tata is each was brought in to very storied programs. Baldwin is the winningest MIL team with 34 championships. Kahuku has a league-leading 18 titles since 1970, but first since 2012.

Lee comes from a family of coaches. His father, Tommy, coached Saint Louis in 1971, as well as at the collegiate level. His other uncle, Ron Lee, was head coach at Kaiser from 1972 to 1980 and coached at the collegiate level, including the University of Hawaii along with Cal Lee.

Tata, though, did not pick up coaching until 2006, when fellow Saint Louis alumnus Peter Salavea asked if he wanted to join McKinley's staff under then-head coach Bobby Grey.  The Tigers stunned eventual state champion Kahuku, 14-13, during the regular season.

"That year, we gave Kahuku their one and only loss (during the OIA season)," Tata recalled. "After that game, just to see the student-athletes, their parents, just full of joy, some of them crying. That right there, gave me my niche. That's how I started. I found my passion (to coach) at that moment."

After his two-year stint at McKinley, Tata, who played for UCLA after graduating from Saint Louis, returned to his college alma mater as a graduate assistant and later defensive assistant. He then moved on to San Jose State and later had his largest success as a defensive assistant at Stanford when it won Pac-12 titles in 2012 and 2013. He was an assistant at Vanderbilt last year until a DUI arrest placed him on suspension before taking the Kahuku job earlier this year.

After Kahuku's OIA championship against Mililani, Tata compared the experience to when Stanford won Pac-12 titles.

NOTES

Kahuku (11-0) is the only unbeaten team in the Division I tournament. The Red Raiders have three wire-to-wire undefeated teams in their history: 2001, 2003 and 2012.

Radford (11-0) and Kapaa (8-0) enter the Division II tournament undefeated. The Rams had an unbeaten team in 1981 (13-0). The Warriors are trying to be the first unbeaten team from the Kauai Interscholastic Federation since Waimea in 1983.

Kapaa set a KIF record for fewest points allowed in a season with zero, beating the previous mark of 3 set by Waimea in 1981. Kapaa also tied a league record with 226 points with Waimea's 1996 team.

Undefeated records include no ties, non-league and postseason games.