IN THE WATER: Daniel Coakley is headed for the Olympics. - Courtesy photo

Beijing bound
One of a trio of Hawaiian friends heads for the Olympics

By Lisa Asato / Ka Wai Ola

Swimming brought three Hawaiian boys from different islands together as competitors and best friends. Now one of them, Daniel-Zane Kailikoa Coakley, is heading to the Beijing Olympics, and they couldn't be prouder.

“He deserves it 100 percent, and as for him being Hawaiian, it makes me even prouder. I wish we had the opportunity to send an All-Hawaiian team to the Olympics!” says Davis Kane, who grew up in Wailuku, Maui, and first met Coakley about eight years ago at a swim meet in California.

“We never raced each other then, but I remember him being faster than me,” Kane says.

Kane, 20, is a member of the University of Hawai'i swim team with their other friend, 19-year-old Ilia Reyes of Kaunakakai, Moloka'i. Reyes said he and Coakley saw each other as competitors at first – “at the time in my life, he was the only person I was afraid of” – but “somehow over the years Daniel and I became best of friends. And it wasn't about so much winning or losing, but more of racing your best friend.”

Coakley, who is Hawaiian, Filipino, Irish, Chinese and Japanese, will be competing for the Philippines in the 50-meter freestyle. He qualified for the event at the South East Asian Games in Thailand, where he breached the Olympic qualifying mark of 23.13 seconds – with a record-setting SEA Games time of 22.8 seconds.

Daniel Coakley's best friends and former competitors, Davis Kane and Ilia Reyes, shown at an all-ages meet April 26 in Mānoa, will be cheering Coakley on from Hawai'i. - Photo: Lisa Asato

“I just love breaking records,” says Coakley, by phone from Jacksonville, Florida, where his six-day-a-week training includes lifting weights and swimming some 4,000 yards in the morning and 6,000 more in the afternoon. “It's just great motivation. I know someone out there or someone younger than I am will be motivated to break my record or to train harder.”

His goal at the Olympics? “To break (the record of) 21.2 (seconds),” says Coakley, whose father, Jeffrey, coached him since he was 9. “But I have lots of Olympics to attend – not only this one. Probably the next Olympics I'll be able to break it, but I don't want to jinx myself.”

Speaking of Reyes and Kane, Coakley, says it was their Hawaiian-ness that made them become friends. “We always shake hands before we swam,” he says. “(It was) really respectful and really positive. I really like them because they share the same values as I do, raised under the same culture.”

Kane and Reyes compare Coakley to Hawai'i's most famous Hawaiian Olympian, swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, for his combination of skill, attitude and all-around good nature. “Even though he's representing the Philippines, I know he's what I call a true Hawaiian – so show the world what Hawaiians are made of,” says Reyes.

But the friends' competitive days aren't over. With Reyes and Kane swimming for UH, and Coakley weighing his options – about eight colleges have expressed interest in him (he's leaning toward the University of California, Irvine, Arizona State University or the University of Arizona), the day will come when the trio will find themselves racing against each other once more, giving his friends back home something to look forward to. “I'm going to be more intimidated now because he's an Olympian,” says Kane.

And Reyes? “Let's just say if I lose to him,” he says with a laugh, “I'll be like, 'Ah I lost to an Olympian.' ”

Watch Coakley's Olympic-qualifying SEA Games 50 freestyle swim at www.danielcoakley.com.