'This game is a laboratory for life': Duane Akina adds wisdom, expertise to Arizona Wildcats coaching staff

One of the most underrated parts about moving back to a city you previously lived in for well over a decade is familiarity. There isn’t angst about settling in or finding your favorite places to eat, even if it’s been two decades.

Just ask Duane Akina, Arizona’s newest senior defensive analyst, who coached at Arizona for 14 seasons under the late Dick Tomey and was a part of the winningest era of Wildcats football.

“I know where all my Chinese restaurants are and all my restaurants, so I don’t have to go hunting,” Akina said. “My wife is right back with her old tennis crew, so it’s been a perfect blend for us.”

A little bit has changed since the 66-year-old Akina left Arizona in 2000 — notably the construction of the Cole and Jeannie Davis Sports Center and the Dick Tomey Practice Fields named after the man he coached with for decades at three stops: Hawaii, Arizona and Texas.

Where the UA football team practices now is where the Arizona baseball program played its games the last time Akina coached in Tucson. And the weather?

“It’s beautiful. How can you beat this? We’re practicing, looking at mountains and palm trees as we’re working,” Akina said. “The energy here is incredible. It’s what I remember from the 14 years I was here at the University of Arizona, and I’m excited to be a part of this. I’m excited about the direction that we’re going.”

Akina’s passion and charisma are tough to put into words. Arizona linebacker Justin Flowe was asked to describe Akina’s personality. He pondered the question and responded with a battle cry, followed by “energy, energy, energy.”

Akina, who Arizona coach Jedd Fisch said “has a great love for the University of Arizona and for the city of Tucson,” provides not only energy but a wealth of knowledge. Considering Akina’s résumé includes coaching three Jim Thorpe Award winners at Arizona and Texas (Darryll Lewis, Michael Huff and Aaron Ross), along with six Rose Bowl appearances, it took no time for him to garner respect from his colleagues and players.

“You get a guy like Duane Akina, what a blessing for us first and foremost to be with a guy that’s been to big-time places and coached at the highest level, coached in the highest games,” Arizona tight ends coach Jordan Paopao said.

Paopao, who is Polynesian, has always carried a high level of admiration for Akina, a Honolulu native who helped instill Polynesian culture, values and principles to set up the foundation of the renowned “Desert Swarm” era and success in the late 1990s that included a Holiday Bowl victory to cap off a 12-1 season in ‘98. Fisch and his staff have tried to follow a similar blueprint.

“What he’s been able to do at the forefront of being one of the first guys coaching at the highest level as a Polynesian coach,” Paopao said of Akina, “for a young dude like me, those are the guys you emulate. Those are the guys, whenever you get a chance to work with (them), you learn as much as you can, not only from a football perspective but ... through the phases of life.”

Football as family

Under Tomey, football played second fiddle to another F-word: Family.

“This game can eat you up. At times, you can spend more time with other people’s children than your own,” Akina said. “But what Coach Tomey did was give us an opportunity to be good parents too, which became good models for the players, and balancing that.”

Akina learned under Tomey that coaching football is “teaching more than just X’s and the O’s and trying to get a first down.”

“This game is a laboratory for life, because everything you learn on the gridiron — put your ego in your back pocket, compete, adversity, getting up at 6 a.m. — is what companies are looking for,” Akina said. “When they leave here, they’re joining another team in the workforce. ... They just transfer it over because that’s their new team.”

One of Akina’s favorite memories of his time at Arizona was a galvanizing loss at No. 1 Miami. The Wildcats nearly upset the top-ranked Hurricanes at the Orange Bowl in the early portion of the 1992 season but fell 8-7 after Steve McLaughlin missed a 51-yard field goal to end the game.

“Negative situation, right?” Akina asked.

McLaughlin sulked in the shower area of the locker room while others trickled in. Just before Tomey delivered his postgame speech, then-freshman safety Brandon Sanders, who is now on Fisch’s staff as coordinator of football alumni and high school relations, shared to the team that “one of our own” was hurting.

“Entire team gets up and goes into the showers,” the emotional Akina said. “We’re playing without our starting quarterback and all of that. We have our meeting in there, and that was the guts — right there, in my opinion — of the whole Desert Swarm. … It was all about the players who loved one another.

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“We competed like heck, but there was true love. … This was the guts of my coaching philosophy. It was because of Coach Tomey.”

‘We all pitch in’

Once he left Arizona for Texas in 2000 following Tomey’s resignation, Akina held defensive backs coach, defensive coordinator and associate head coach roles under longtime Longhorns coach Mack Brown for 13 seasons, then spent nine seasons as a defensive backs coach under David Shaw at Stanford.

“I’m just really excited that every stop I’ve been at … I’ve been around a lot of really good coaches,” Akina said. “And I continue to grow as a coach here as I’m learning from Coach (Johnny) Nansen and a lot of the younger coaches, like the (graduate assistants), so it’s been a positive experience without a doubt.”

Why does Akina continue to coach rather than wear Hawaiian shirts and golf year-round like several men at this chapter of their lives do?

“What I know about this profession is that it’s all about the people you’re lining up with,” Akina said. “When we sat down and talked about ‘What’s your vision? What are we looking for here?’ ... the direction that it’s moving in, it’s very much what I’ve been raised on by the man we’ve named this practice field (after). It’s about the team and simplifying things so we can play fast and chase the football.”

Akina works alongside safeties coach Chuck Cecil and first-year cornerbacks coach John Richardson. Akina’s voice — even with rap music blaring at practice — echoes around the field. He’s constantly emphasizing to players — whether it’s 7-on-7 or a team drill — to swarm to the ball.

Nansen, Arizona’s second-year defensive coordinator, said adding Akina to the Wildcats’ defensive staff brings “a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge … in every phase.”

“He’s one of the best coaches there is, and it’s been nice to get some feedback into what we’re doing and how we can do it better, so it’s been great,” Nansen said.

With Akina’s wisdom and expertise, coupled with Nansen’s defensive foundation, the Wildcats are striving to restore the prominent defensive identity the program had in its heyday.

“As I learn the system on how we’re canceling gaps and what we’re doing on the back end, (then) I can marry it to some of things we’ve done in the past, whether it was here with (Desert) Swarm or when I was at Texas and at (Stanford),” Akina said. “We’re blending what’s been done in the past and what I’ve done in other areas, along with Chuck and (Richardson) — I’m just a piece of the puzzle to this staff.”

Besides assisting Arizona’s secondary, Akina is among the most active coaches during the team’s special-teams segments during practice. Akina was also Arizona’s offensive coordinator for four seasons. He knows the game through and through.

“We all pitch in when we’re needed here. … I’ve worn every title you can wear,” Akina said. ”Titles aren’t important, you know? If there’s a job, somebody go do it, and that’s where we’re at.

“In this profession, all I know is that you have to put your ego in your back pocket. I have not been around staffs that are selfish and are looking for their own self-improvement. The places I’ve been, it’s about the team, and if you do well, we’ll all be successful: Players will become All-Americans and pros, coaches will move from a position coach to a coordinator to a head coach, and that’s what I’m feeling here.”

If you ask Akina, his return to Arizona feels more like a ride than a job.

“I appreciate them letting me jump on this train and go with them,” he said. “I’ve been to six Rose Bowls, and I’d like to get one with the University of Arizona.”