The Wilcox Chargers are league champions this season and leading the way is sophomore Kai Imahara, who, at 15 years old, is the youngest starting quarterback for Wilcox in 30 years. The last time the Chargers went with a sophomore as the varsity starting quarterback was back in 1994.
Even more impressively, Imahara won the starting job despite missing nearly his entire freshman season with an injury suffered in Week 1. Flash forward to present day, Imahara, the teenager who cannot yet legally drive a car, is driving the varsity team towards what could very well be yet another deep playoff run in CCS. With Imahara at the helm, the Chargers are 7-2 overall, 4-0 in league and are riding a five-game winning streak heading into the regular season finale.
So just how was Imahara able to impress Head Coach Paul Rosa enough to be a sophomore varsity starter despite hardly playing as a freshman?
“We knew we liked him as a freshman because we moved him from our freshman team to JV, but we didn’t know for sure until he started practicing with [varsity] over the summer,” said Coach Rosa. “We don’t usually move any of our freshmen, but we moved him up and going into this year we had an open tryout and Kai ended up winning the job.
“It’s his commitment to the game,” continued Rosa. “He breathes football. He’s really focused. We film our practices during the summer and he by far watched more film than any other player we had. We could tell how much film they watch. He just really sets out to try and be a better player every week. He rarely makes the same mistake twice.”
Imahara’s dedication to the game has proven invaluable this season in adjusting to varsity. The sophomore notes multiple differences that took getting used to at the higher level.
“First off, it’s the speed of the game and how if you don’t do your job and process quickly, the play isn’t going to work,” said Imahara. “Chemistry with my receivers is a big thing too. I have to know how fast they are, what they like to do on certain types of routes. The defensive IQ is a lot because they might be in a defensive call that stops the play and you need to check out of it.”
Thus far Imahara has checked out all the boxes for the Chargers. He even remains humble, as Imahara wasn’t even aware that he is the first sophomore starter in decades until hearing about it in a sit down with this newspaper.
“It just feels great to be so young and to be on such a great team on varsity,” responded Imahara. “Being that big of a gap in sophomore quarterbacks, 30 years, it is crazy to think about.”
Imahara won’t actually celebrate his 16th birthday until January. He’s hoping for many more football celebrations in the meantime.
In 1975, the starting quarterback for Mountain View High School was 15 year-old sophomore Dennis Mateo. That 1975 team not only won the SCVAL championship, they went on to win the CCS championship; and that was in the era when there were no CCS playoff divisions, and only one champion was crowned.
Actually it was 1986 Sophomore Scott Hoshi helped lead the Chargers to their 1st CCS playoffs against Oak Grove