Seeking future protection, the University of Hawaii football team secured a 2026 commitment from an offensive lineman from Canada.<\/p>\n
Cooper Troy of Harry Ainlay High in Edmonton told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser he has accepted an offer from the Rainbow Warriors. Troy, who is 6 feet 4 and 310 pounds, is a skilled pass protector and a self-styled people mover with his blocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love football,\u201d Troy said. \u201cI love hitting people. I love getting the ball moving. I move people. I hustle a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troy made his pledge after completing his UH-sponsored recruiting trip on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved everything about it,\u201d Troy said. \u201cI love the O-line coach, Derek Fa\u2018avi, as a coach and as a person. I love his temperament. I feel I\u2019ll be able to learn a lot from him. He coached in Japan. He coached everywhere. He seems very open-minded, and willing to teach in different ways. To me, that\u2019s massive. I like to learn visually. I need a lot of repetition. I need to put in the work to be good at anything. He seems like the type of coach who\u2019s willing to help me with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troy said Ainlay High\u2019s head coach used to coached Brock Ralph, who was teammates with UH head coach Timmy Chang and offensive coordinator Anthony Arceneaux in the Canadian Football League.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI knew tons of good things about Timmy Chang,\u201d Troy said. \u201cI have tons of confidence in Timmy Chang and Coach Arceneaux.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troy also said he enjoyed what he called the Warriors\u2019 \u201chonest, genuine and relaxed kind of energy. Everyone seemed happy. And Hawaii\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troy said he even prefers Hawaii\u2019s humidity to Edmonton\u2019s extreme weather the last two years. <\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years ago, it was minus-57,\u201d Troy said. \u201cIt was unbelievably cold. In Canada, if it hails, if you get freezing rain, you still go to work and school. Minus-57 is so cold even Canadians won\u2019t get out of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also was impressed with Hawaii\u2019s environmental-protection laws \u2014 \u201cthat was a huge part for me\u201d \u2014 and plate lunches. It was the first time he ate chicken katsu and meat jun. \u201cI loved them both,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe not game-changing, but they were up there. Delicious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troy\u2019s experience in other activities transcends to playing on the offensive line. He competed in rugby, discus, shot put, and wrestling \u2014 each requiring different uses of strength, footwork, balance and leverage. His work ethic was illustrated working as a lumberjack, landscaper and for a contracting company that scraped out garbage compactors and repaired balers.<\/p>\n
Playing the drums complements his love of music. Last year, he said he listened to 130,000 minutes of metal, rock and pop songs, mostly during drives of a couple of hours from his home in Leduc to Ainlay High\u2019s campus in Edmonton to a training facility in Sherwood Park and then back home. He also coaches youth football teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to coach,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really improves my understanding of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seeking future protection, the University of Hawaii football team secured a 2026 commitment from an offensive lineman from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,8106,479,164,4025,4024,6,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-102230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-editors","10":"tag-golden-state","11":"tag-golden-state-warriors","12":"tag-goldenstate","13":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114692826358582238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}