HONOLULU — Jim Leahey had a knack for drawing people in and making them feel as though they were part of the story, be it a freewheeling joke or one of the thousands of sporting events he called over his legendary career.
On Sunday, his family and friends got a chance to do the same. At his celebration of life in the gym of his alma mater Saint Louis School, Leahey, the Hawaii sports broadcaster who died Jan. 30 at age 80, was the subject of tributes that spanned his decades.
Numerous local dignitaries and former colleagues in the broadcast industry were among the few hundred in attendance, along with Leahey’s wife Toni, and two of his brothers.
Laughs and tears alike were shared as one speaker after the next recounted the exacting standards and curmudgeonly yet caring ways of “Pops,” the moniker that he embraced later in life as a grandfather as well as a pillar of the local sports community.
His son Kanoa Leahey, who succeeded him as the primary voice of University of Hawaii sports, held rapt the crowd with a speech about his father’s indelible role in his life, both as a person and as a professional.
“I loved my dad. I admired him. He also had a pretty significant impact on me,” Kanoa Leahey said. “He taught me just about everything I know, from sportscasting, to curse words, to life lessons, to more curse words.”
Upon completing his term in the Navy that included service in the Vietnam War, Jim Leahey, himself the son of a legendary broadcaster, held to a firm belief of fairness regardless of one’s background. It was a passion that led him to teaching more than a decade at Campbell High School before being lured away to be a full-time sportscaster at KGMB.
During spare time, Leahey would host family Wiffle ball games in the family’s Ewa Beach backyard. Those were some of Kanoa Leahey’s fondest childhood memories. His father’s team, the “Jimmys,” featured a full lineup of quirky, fictional players, all with name variations of “John.”
Many of the stories about Leahey involved a recurring theme: a gruff exterior that belied his warm nature.
His daughters Katy and Kelly recounted to the gatherers how, though being a devoted father, he had them clean the yard on Christmas Day. His granddaughter Malia said “Pops” would get so fired up at the officials at her youth sporting events that he would be asked to leave.
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, Leahey’s UH football broadcast partner for more than 11 years, called his good friend a “treasure” and did his best to describe their tortured relationship; Blangiardi was part of the umbrella of “broadcast management” that Leahey despised enough to make not trusting such people one of his signature rules of the profession.
“For all his bluster, he was a man of deep feelings and really incredible warmth, when he wanted to be,” Blangiardi said with a laugh.
Above all, Blangiardi said, it was imperative that Leahey became the overall voice of UH sports in 1984.
“When Jim was behind that microphone, it wasn’t just the teams on the field that were playing,” Blangiardi said. “It was Hawaii. He could engender in all of us a spirit of pride, of happiness, of joy unlike anything I’ve ever seen in another announcer.”
His longtime baseball partner Pal Eldredge was his friend for 50 years. Eldredge pinballed from one story after the next, many detailing Leahey’s grief over their competing alma maters, Saint Louis and Punahou, and Eldredge’s BYU education.
Eldredge made sure to point out he was wearing an aloha shirt with Punahou colors.
“Heroes are remembered. Legends never die. Here’s to our legend Jim Leahey,” Eldredge said.
Artie Wilson, his UH basketball broadcast partner for more than 30 years, made a deliberate choice to wear a suit in the stuffy gym because it, too, was a symbol of their friendship.
Wilson, after much prodding, eventually convinced Leahey to try on a suit for their basketball broadcasts. Leahey later admitted he loved it.
“He was probably the best friend a man could have. He taught me a lot about life. He taught me about excellence, about standing strong,” Wilson said. “I respect him because he never told me what I could say or what I shouldn’t say. He allowed me to be who I wanted to be and stand on my own two feet.”
Wilson joined Kanoa Leahey in calling Jim Leahey the best play-by-play man in state history.
Finally, and fittingly, Leahey was “played off” by the UH Manoa band, as was done countless times as he concluded a Rainbow Warrior or Wahine broadcast with “Malama pono kekahi i kekahi” — take care of one another.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.