Christopher Paige with mom, Traci, and dad, James.
The opportunities are what Christopher Paige loves.
The Punahou junior wide receiver has three scholarship offers now with the addition of Air Force to his collection. The other offers two complete the military academy trifecta: Army and Navy.
“In January, I started a twitter account and sent videos to all the schools I was interested in,” Paige said.
Army was first to offer. Former Waipahu coach Sean Saturnio recruits the islands hard every year.
“They like having a deep threat. Since they have a history of running the ball, it opens up opportunities for one-on-one matchups,” Paige said. “Coach Sean called me on the phone after school. He said we’re real excited to offer you a spot.”
Then came Navy, which is coached by former Radford and Hawaii player Ken Niumatalolo. Former Warrior Billy Ray Stutzmann has also recruited the islands tenaciously.
“Most of our conversations were on Twitter and he finally called me. He said, ‘We finally got the OK from our receivers coach and we’re really excited about you. We want you to come play,’ “ Paige recalled.
Air Force made its offer last week.
“I talked with Coach Jake Campbell. They kind of said the same thing about opening up the deep ball. All those schools have real great academic programs, great STEM program and a place where I can play at a high level,” he said.
Visiting the academies is a priority, but it’s a matter of when. The same goes for Penn, Princeton and Yale, which have also shown interest.
“I’m still trying to figure out when to visit, when their campuses open up,” said Paige, who has a 3.6 grade-point average. “It’s finding a good balance between strong academies and playing at a high level, so I’m still trying to figure it out. I have a real passion for STEM. Over the past few months. I got into coding and engineering. I do it on my own. I really enjoy it. I think that’s something I could be interested in studying further, the Computer Science area.”
Paige made a splash last season as a deep threat in Punahou’s potent offensive attack with 23 receptions for 347 yards and four touchdowns. Seniors like Koa Eldredge led the receiving corps, and Paige is one of the returnees who will get his chance to test defenses on the back end this fall — if the COVID-19 pandemic relents. So he keeps working. Running on the beach. Lifting at home.
He could use a mat for the weights.
“If I do power cleans on the side of the yard, I leave holes there and my mom gets mad. I can do bench press and squats. I have a rack at home with everything. I have five-pound plates to 45-pound plates. It’s nothing too fancy, you can get everything done on there,” Paige said. “My dad (James) is working from home, so he’s spotting me as long as it’s lunch break. He did a lot of lifting in college.”
The beach is close by. He keeps moving and doesn’t sit around.
“At the beach, I do my warmups, maybe jump rope, core exercises with a bunch of resistance bands, and a 14-pound ball.”
At the start of football season last year, Paige was 172 pounds. He now has 180 pounds on a 6-foot-2 frame.
“Just keeping the angle in mind, about where I want to be, can’t take any days off or cruise. I want to hold anywhere between 180 and 185. I don’t want to lose or put on anything too much that would compromise my speed,” he said.
That speed is the core of his other love, track. He had the seventh-fastest 300-meter hurdles time in the nation for his age group last year, 38.8 seconds. This spring, he had a personal-record 14.98 in the 110 hurdles during the first and only ILH meet. Then came the lockdown.
“This was the first year i decided to stop playing basketball to focus more on track, so it’s a little disappointing. I was happy i got to run in one of the meets,” Paige said.
Last year, he placed fourth in the 300 and 110 hurdles. Cal and Stanford have shown some interest in him as a hurdler. Punahou was set to travel to California for a meet during spring break, which was cancelled.
“I was going to visit Stanford for track and maybe San Diego for football,” said Paige, whose father graduated from Stanford’s law school. “From a very young age, he went there for law school, he always talked in my ear about how good a school it is. Cal said with the marks I’m hitting and many grades i can walk on the team, but I want to continue the conversation with them.”
Depending on the state and DOE’s decisions regarding the COVID-19 lockdown, high school spring sports in the islands is a long shot to resume. The HHSAA is still willing to keep options, including hosting state tournaments in the summer, wide open.
“That would be great. A lot of the kids in my class and senior class feel like they have a lot to prove. A lot of the seniors feel like they got robbed. Some people want to get out of here already, but most of them want to do it,” Paige said. “Football and track are both passions of mine, it’s not a great feeling having something you love taken from you.”
His parents, Traci and James, had been looking forward to cheering him on this track season.
“I have no idea where the speed comes from. My mom says it comes from her. She didn’t run track. I’m pretty sure I’m the only track athlete in my family on both sides. It’s kind of funny because my dad’s reserved, and I can hear my mom yelling for me to run faster when it’s the last turn on a track,” Paige said.
Chances are much better for fall sports of returning. Punahou loses immense talent on the offensive side of the ball, but quarterback John-Keawe Sagapolutele will return for his sophomore season. There’s enough experience at offensive line and receiver to keep momentum going forward for a team that went 10-2 last year, losing only to nationally-ranked Saint Louis (twice).
“Rayden (Kiaaina-Caires) and me might be out wide, but they could switch him to slot. Half of our offense is back,” Paige said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how much time we have before the season starts. It’s a strong group of guys. A lot of us played together for Metro Tigers (JPS).”
The plan for many of the Buffanblu after spring sports season was to meet up for informal workouts on their own. Now, it’s mainly workouts wherever possible and a lot of Netflix. Here are Paige’s favorites during this lockdown.
Top 3 shows
1. “I just finished watching ‘Tiger King.’ That was the craziest thing I ever watch. That was nuts, man. There’s a plot twist every single episode.
2. “I just started watching ‘Community.’ That’s funny.”
3. “I’ll start watching ‘Atlanta.’ I just started watching a couple of episodes.”
Food
1. “My mom bought an assortment of huge, flaming hot Funyuns, Cheetos, Fritos.”
2. “My mom made me a pretty good beef curry the other night.”
3. “I just had take-out from Gyotaku (Niu Valley) that was pretty good, too. It had teriyaki chicken, shrimp tempura. It had shrimp and ahi sushi.”
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