At Honolulu’s Punahou School, Timothy Lot Kamaka Kamanā was christened with the nickname, moʻo (lizard), by his peers. From an early age, as a mixed-race person, he learned adaptability.
Among the student body’s homogenous population, he didn’t feel white enough. Among the Polynesian minority, Kamanā didn’t feel brown enough.
But by overcoming imposter syndrome and embracing himself, “that in-between made me who I am,” he said.
Kamanā, 31, is a son, a brother, a husband and a father. He’s a former Division 1 college football player and a corporate recruiter. Throughout it all, he’s Kanaka Maoli, whether he’s in his hometown of Honolulu or his current city of Denver, Colorado.
“As far back as I can remember, I have deeply associated my identity with being Hawaiian,” Kamanā said.
His mother, Heidi Kamaka, met his father, Carter Kamanā, as haumāna at Kamehameha Schools. Both sides have Kānaka ancestry. Heidi is also Chinese, German and Dutch.
Kamanā is the second born of four. He remembers naturally gravitating toward his grandmothers.
As a keiki, Kamanā was drawn to art, which counted as his favorite class. He loved drawing and painting. His ʻohana founded Kamaka Hawaiʻi, the storied ʻukulele company and Kamanā also felt connected to music, especially singing in the choir.
Growing up, he often heard anecdotes about the football careers of his father, a former Michigan State Spartan, and his uncle, John Kamanā, who played for the University of Southern California like their father before them. John later advanced to the NFL.
By grade school, Kamanā dreamed of being a professional athlete. “In a sense, that part of my life was charted out for me,” he said.
His football aspirations kicked off in fifth grade. He began learning offensive positions like running back and wide receiver. But a coach reminded him of Kamanā’s father’s defensive legacy, which stuck with him.
At Punahou, Kamanā joined the football team. During his sophomore year, he was moved to defensive back – a position he would play for the rest of his career. Kamanā also ran track, participating in sprint and long jump events.
Throughout high school, a long-term plan developed: Clench a football scholarship and go to college outside Hawaiʻi. It was a path forged by those before Kamanā. His mother played soccer at Washington State University, and his aunt attended the University of Notre Dame.
“I always just had this belief in my mind – right, wrong or indifferent – that you have to leave Hawaiʻi to be able to do the things that you want to be able to do,” Kamanā said.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point offered him a scholarship first, followed by the University of Wyoming. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa made a last-minute push, but, by Kamanā’s senior year, he described himself as “itching” to explore beyond the islands.
He graduated in 2012 and headed to West Point, New York. Kamanā was captivated by the university’s prestige. But he felt that, even with his preparations, he wasn’t ready for the grim reality.
“You’re gonna get kicked in the teeth,” Kamanā said. “It’s a grind.”
There, two aspects of student life came first: the military and academia. That didn’t ultimately align with Kamanā’s goal to focus on football.
After his first semester at West Point, the University of Wyoming extended him another athletic scholarship. So, in the dead of winter, he left the East Coast for the Cowboy State in 2013.
“Talk about choosing the most polar opposite places that you possibly could from where we grew up,” Kamanā said.
Once he accepted those differences, though, Kamanā took full advantage of Wyoming as a building block. He majored in finance and marketing. As a football player, he played various positions on defense. In 2014, Kamanā “made a career-high 10 tackles against San Jose State and recorded a career-high eight solo tackles against the Spartans,” according to his football biography.
His final college game took place in December 2017.
On his graduation weekend in 2018, Kamanā met Trae Pierce through a friend, and the first tendrils of love unfurled. Being both Black and white, Trae could relate to Kamanā’s lived experiences.
But at that point, he was across the Moananuiākea in Hawaiʻi. Kamanā stayed home for almost a year, in the hopes that he would get a call for NFL tryouts. Once he finally hung up his cleats, he did some soul searching.
“My entire identity was football up to that point,” Kamanā said.
Later that year, Trae flew out to the islands to visit him, and they officially started dating. A friend suggested an interview with his employer, and Kamanā was offered a job at Addison Group in Seattle. Trae joined him soon after.
Kamanā served as an executive recruiter for two years before moving to a branch manager role in 2020. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trae was hāpai with the couple’s first child, Cannon.
The next year, with a new baby, the pair got engaged. Kamanā proposed to Trae with his college bowl game ring in Hawaiʻi. He also took on a new remote job at Cedar, a healthcare financial experience platform.
Kamanā and Trae were married on Seattle’s Alki Beach in 2022. They moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, that fall to be closer to Trae’s loved ones.
Just weeks ago, Kamanā’s young ʻohana resettled in Denver. His daughter, Coast, will be born sometime soon (her inoa Hawaiʻi has yet to be determined). Kamanā recently accepted a role in talent acquisition at Candid Health.
With all these new developments, a return to the ʻāina isn’t imminent, but it remains the target – particularly for the benefit of his keiki.
“I know who came before me, and I carry them with me,” Kamanā said. “That’s what makes me me and helps me to stay rooted.”
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