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Call him the Philly Paniolo. 

Joseph Hooper has endured a long road, with many stops between his home in Kamuela on the Big Island and the City of Brotherly Love. 

All of it has been a grind. 

Hooper, a 2017 graduate of Kamehameha-Hawaii, where he was a multi-sport standout, is in his fifth season of collegiate football and his third year at Temple, a member of the American Athletic Conference. The 6-foot-3, 300-pound senior offensive lineman has started every game this season at left guard for the Owls (1-2), who play hosts to Wagner (0-3) Saturday.

But it wasn't all that long ago that Hooper was a high school freshman and commuting daily from Waimea to the Kamehameha-Hawaii campus in Keaau. 

"It was hard," Hooper reflected during a phone interview Thursday morning. "I would wake up every morning at 4:45 (a.m.) and get on the bus by 5:30."

The days were long, for sure, but Hooper had a travel buddy for the two-hour bus rides in his older sister, Leimomi.

"She was a senior and I was a freshman so we did that together and I sat next to her. That freshman year I would be up at 4:45 and wouldn't get home until 8:30 at night after football practice, hopefully get two hours of homework in then go to sleep and get up and do it all over again," Hooper detailed. 

The following school year — when Leimomi was a freshman at UH-Hilo — the two shared an apartment much closer to their respective schools. 

"I still woke up at 5:30 a.m. every morning, but that extra 30 minutes was great," Hooper laughed. "Then I was able to do more sports my sophomore, junior and senior years because of that."

In addition to his football exploits — he was an All-Big Island Interscholastic Federation Division II first team selection as a senior in 2016 — Hooper also excelled in wrestling, judo and track and field; he captured the league 285-pound individual wrestling title in 2017. 

But at first there was hesitation. Hooper, who grew up mugging and roping steer as a rancher — even competing in rodeos as a youngster — wasn't very fond of the rather revealing nature of the wrestling singlet. 

"In all honesty, I was really nervous to do wrestling just because of what we had to wear," he admitted. "I was not a fan of it, but thankfully my mom (Michele) pushed me and influenced me to do it."

Mothers know best, after all. In the end, Hooper is appreciative of her encouragement and for what the sport of wrestling provided for him. 

"I believe that wrestling was probably the best thing that I could have done. It taught me how to be fast on my feet, it was more of a sport that taught me more technique and I was able to bring that over to the football world," Hooper explained. "My mom pushed me to do judo and judo taught me more of how to fall and then my junior and senior year I did track to be able to be with coach Manly."

That would be Manly Kanoa, Hooper's position coach on the football team and also the throwing coach for the track and field squad. Hooper credits Kanoa for being an instrumental part of his development as a student-athlete. 

"I can never thank coach Manly enough," he said. "He pushed me hard, but he also influenced me a lot to keep playing the game of football."

Hooper said that the multitude of sports that he participated in during high school laid the groundwork for the grind that was ahead of him after graduation.

"High school sports sets the foundation if you want to be a collegiate athlete and I think that's where you kind of find if you really love the sport or not," he said. "I wasn't too sure if it was always a dream to play college football, or if I was gonna go to college after high school."

He cited the support of his family – including dad, Kyle, and longtime girlfriend, Keane Farias, a 2018 KS-Hawaii graduate — as a pivotal piece to his work ethic. 

"They were all influences on me going to college and pursing my dream, as well as Kamehameha Schools, I'm forever thankful for them," Hooper expressed. "They taught me how to time-manage and do a lot of that stuff and if I could go back, I would have took high school, the school work, more serious. I think a lot of athletes think while they're in high school that if you're a good athlete then you don't have to worry about school, but school's very important."

Hooper has attended a number of schools since finishing up his prep days. His first stop was Reedley College, a junior college, in central California — some 25 minutes outside of Fresno. 

"I spent a year there, was the starting left tackle and played in 10 games there," Hooper recalled. "Being there was a grind; I was battling against their returning starter and a funny story is, at one point in time during training camp I had to share a helmet with him. Cali juco is definitely a tough way to go, but you really find out if you love the sport of football."

After a year at Reedley, Hooper earned a full scholarship from Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kansas — located some 30 miles northeast of the city of Wichita. 

"Being out there really taught me more technique. Their head coach (Tim Schaffner) was a great guy; He took me under his wing knowing that I was far from home and I think, even though I was only out there for a year, but the bond between us players was really strong. Because everyone has a goal when you get to juco — get to D1 — and that year our entire starting line went D1," Hooper said. 

It was about playing for the man next to you, he explained. 

"Everyone's always striving for a national championship, but we were playing for each other, because we know that if we play good more people will see us and if he gets recruited, then more people will see the rest of us," Hooper said. 

He started 12 games at left guard at Butler, where he also made the Dean's List, Hooper took his talents even further east to Philadelphia, more specifically Temple University. 

During his junior season, Vincent Picozzi, the team's starting right guard, sustained an injury that led to Hooper's first career start against Tulane in the third-to-last game of the regular season. He has been a fixture on the Owls' o-line ever since. 

"When I first came in I had a lot of guys in front of me — Jovahn Fair, Matt Hennessy, who now plays for the (Atlanta) Falcons, Vince Picozzi plays for Colorado State now — they all took me under their wing and when Vince suffered his injury, I was able to play next to these veteran guys and they brought me along and showed me the ropes and helped me be as successful as possible," Hooper acknowledged. "I'm forever grateful for them for being able to teach me."

Temple went 8-5 and played in the Military Bowl against North Carolina to cap-off the 2019 season. It struggled to a 1-6 record in the COVID-condensed 2020 season last fall, when Hooper slid over to left guard. 

He has started all three games for the Owls this season at left guard. The Owls dropped their season-opener at Rutgers, 61-14, but rebounded with a 45-24 win at Akron a week later. Last weekend, they fell at home against Boston College, 28-3, and were limited to only 84 yards of total offense. 

"It's been a rough start, but a little bit of adversity never hurts anybody," Hooper said. "The way that we're able to come together as a team and respond in a positive way will go a long way toward how well we do the rest of the season."

If anyone knows about coming a long way, it's Hooper. But no matter how far he may be from Hawaii, home is never far from his thoughts. 

"Being at Temple has made me miss home a lot more and appreciate Hawaii. The culture is very different in Philly and Hawaii, but Temple has been a great place for me, they've taken care of me and the coaching staff has a great culture where we're they treat you like family, but that also means they're going to coach you hard," Hooper said. 

Hooper feels fortunate to have achieved his dream of playing Division-I football, along with a few of his former teammates on the Kamehameha-Hawaii offensive line in Teva Reynolds and Kelii Montibon, who went on to play at Georgia Southern and Oregon State, respectively. 

"I'm glad that we're able to put our mark out there and show that Hawaii kids can get out," Hooper said. "We were all chasing a dream and we all wanted to do this and we were fortunate enough that we went to the juco route and we were able to make it and that is a big deal to me — it's a big deal to all of us because we're just trying to help out the next generation of football players, next generation of athletes that want to get out and chase their dreams."

Ultimately, Hooper hopes to return to the Big Island and make an impact for the youth in his own community. 

"After my football career is over — if it's after this year or if I get fortunate enough to play a few years in the NFL — I do want to go home and help as many kids as I can," he said. "The experience that I've had here, it's an experience of a lifetime and I want more kids from Hawaii to be able to experience this. Oahu has a lot of kids that get out, a lot of D1 athletes, but the Big Island has only had a handful of us that made it."

Hooper, who is on track to graduate with his bachelor's degree in economics this fall, will be playing in the 20th game of his Temple career against Wagner this weekend. Saturday's game is the final non-conference one for the Owls, who start AAC play against Memphis on Oct. 2. 

Temple and Wagner are scheduled to kick off at 6 a.m. Hawaii time.