JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jacksonville Jaguars’ facility is filled with plenty of new faces coming into the 2025 season, and one of those is Keli’i Kekuewa, the team’s new assistant offensive line coach and run game specialist.
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Kekeuwa, who turns 35 in December, was born in Puna, Hawaii, and moved to the continental U.S. when he was 17 after graduating early from high school.
While in Hawaii, a love for two things grew quickly for him: Preserving native Hawaiian land and a love for the game of football, and he carries those passions with him daily.
Journey from player to coach
Kekuewa’s love for football began in Hawaii while watching the Pete Carroll-led USC Trojans during the early 2000s, a school he says has a strong connection to his home state.
“That was football growing up,” he added.
He also said that seeing native Hawaiian players succeed in the NFL provided even more reasons to love the game.
“Seeing guys like Olin Kreutz, Dominic Raiola, Max Unger, Chris Naeole, Tyson Alualu, Marcus Mariota, and Manti Te’o was huge for us,” Kekuewa said. “There’s a ton of football stars from Hawaii...and as a big guy, it was great to see. The culture of football in Hawaii is huge.”
Unfortunately, an offer from the University of Hawaii never materialized, which forced him to leave his home state for the first time to follow his dream of one day becoming an NFL player.
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His football journey continued via the JUCO route at Arizona Western for two years, before heading to Ohio to play for Bowling Green State University as an offensive lineman.
However, once he officially hung up his Bowling Green jersey, his NFL career “ended before it began,” as Kekeuwa puts it, which led to a period of uncertainty that almost put him out of football for good — but the game wasn’t quite done with him yet.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do after Bowling Green,” Kekeuwa recalled. “I got a degree in environmental policy because I wanted to go home and manage land in Hawaii, and never really thought about coaching...then the head coach at Bowling Green, Dave Clawson, went to Wake Forest and offered me to be a graduate assistant.”
As most journeys go, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Kekeuwa during his time at Wake Forest, especially after back-to-back three-win seasons, which led to him asking himself multiple times, “I signed up for this?”
But a bowl game win in his third year began to justify the decision to become a football coach, and after bouncing around a “bunch of college places,” he found himself at one of the most elite programs in the country: Notre Dame, a place he would’ve been content with calling home for his career.
Unless a better opportunity arose.
“I told my wife I wanted to stay [at Notre Dame],” he said. “[But] if I’m going to take my family away from Hawaii, it better be worth it...I want to work at the highest level.”
And the highest level came calling.
Following his stint at Notre Dame, Kekeuwa was recommended for an offensive quality control position in a state not too far from Hawaii: Washington, to join the Seattle Seahawks coaching staff, and was hired by current Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer.
The moment was a full circle one for Kekeuwa. After growing up watching Pete Carroll coach his beloved USC Trojans to multiple national championships, he now had the opportunity to work alongside the legendary coach.
Additionally, living in Washington meant he could finally reconnect with his roots, as the state has the third-highest population of native Hawaiians in the US.
“Working for Pete was the most amazing thing I could’ve thought of doing,” he said. “Seattle was very important to me because I could still be close to the [Hawaiian] culture...it was more than just football, it was connecting back with home, connecting with native Hawaiians.”
He would spend the 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 seasons with the team, but once the organization and Carroll decided to part ways, Kekuewa said he knew that if his career in the NFL were to continue, it would have to be somewhere else, a decision that was tough because of how much connection to home Seattle offered.
Next stop: Charlotte, North Carolina, to join the Carolina Panthers.
But the struggles of being further away from Hawaii resurfaced, and after one season with the team, Kekeuwa chose to leave, adding that it was tough because of the relationships that were established in Charlotte.
“I didn’t expect to leave Carolina...we had struggles, but a common misconception from football fans is that these aren’t coworkers,” he explained. “We spend more time with these people than our family sometimes...[but] I had to make a business decision.” And that business decision led him to the 904, where he’s happy to continue doing what he loves and hopes to be a part of turning around an organization that has held a top-five pick in the draft in three of the last five years.
‘Connection to land is deep’
If not for football, Keli’i Kekuewa’s love for preserving and conserving native Hawaiian land would most likely lead to him utilizing his degree in environmental policy in his home state.
But even though he no longer lives in Hawaii, that hasn’t stopped him and his wife, Namelelani (Akiona) Kekuewa, from living out their mission, ensuring that native Hawaiians maintain possession of their land.
“Affordable housing is a problem in Hawaii,” he explains. “Natives can’t afford to live back home, so they’re leaving to live elsewhere.”
One way Namelelani is working to solve that issue is through her work with Inoanaiwi, a nonprofit that raises money to purchase land for the purpose of restoring it to its “original caretakers”, native Hawaiians. (Those who would like to contribute to the cause can make donations here.)
“The nonprofit is relatively new, but they’ve already had two homes purchased and given,” he said.
He continued to explain the importance of land in Hawaii and the spiritual connection between the people and the land.
“The connection to land is deep,” he said. “Land is family, and when you take us away from the land and the land from the people, things don’t go right.”
He adds that the work his wife does helps to keep life in perspective and always provides a reminder of his passion beyond football.
“My wife reminds me of who I am, our Hawaiian people, our nation, and what our part is in the bigger picture,” he said.
Kekuewa adds that during the NFL’s “My Cause, My Cleats” campaign, which typically takes place during Weeks 13 and 14 during the regular season, fans can catch him paying homage to the nonprofit and Hawaiian culture on the sidelines.
And now that his career has taken him the furthest away from home that he’s ever been, he knows it’s even more important to keep Hawaii on his mind and in his heart.
