Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Okay, full disclosure here: I am an alumnus of the school under discussion, so I realize some may feel that this is self-indulgent, but I feel there is a strong Bruin angle here, I swear.

SI.com recently named their top athletic high school for 2008: Punahou School of Honolulu Hawaii. After perusing the article I couldn't help but notice that UCLA is featured quite prominently throughout what is obviously a fluff piece. This is, of course, a double source of pride for me as a double alumnus, but I've provided the money quotes that relate to our Bruins to illustrate the depth of UCLA's tradition.

As many of you may recall, our 101st title came via our Women's Water Polo team (congratulations again to our ladies). One of the seniors on the team is a Punahou alumnus as well as another member of the men's team. These are not isolated incidents as the article shows:

How else to describe the dynasty over which water polo coach Ken Smith presides? In addition to the girls' 10 ILH and three state championships, the boys' team has won 32 of the last 35 league titles and produced 12 high school All-Americas. There's been at least one former Punahou player on every U.S. Olympic men's water polo team since 1988, and Brandon Brooks ('99) is expected to be the goalie in Beijing. Smith is himself a former All-America at UCLA, the preferred destination for Buff 'n Blue water polo standouts. Four of the top 10 scorers in Bruins history are Punahou grads; in '82, five of UCLA's seven starters had played for Punahou.

By the way, Brooks is also a UCLA alum ('02), was a part of 2 national championship teams in '99 and '00, and is now an assistant coach for the men's and women's teams under Adam Krikorian.

Bruins Nation should also be familiar with another alumnus:

"When I was there, Punahou was known as a school for rich white kids," recalls UCLA offensive coordinator Norm Chow ('64), who is of Chinese descent. "If you know anything about the history of this state, you know those passions and prejudices can run pretty deep."

I'm just hoping that maybe that connection will help us bring in Manti Te'o (2009 LB Recruit).

Any article like this would be incomplete without mentioning academic successes:

Over the last four years Punahou placed 85 students in Ivy League schools, 29 at UCLA, 23 at Stanford, 13 at Pepperdine and 10 at Notre Dame.

Of course, I'm not surprised to hear that with its reputation, UCLA hobnobs with the Ivy's and Furd. Our inclusion as one of Newsweek's 25 New Ivies seems to support that. I do happen to know for a fact, however, that SUC also got at least 50 and probably many more students from this school over the same time period, and yet I see no mention of them. So much for building the academic reputation across town.

The bottom line in all of this is that I found it amusing and appropriate that one cannot mention the top athletic high school in the country without talking fairly extensively about UCLA. Most of the articles we post are centered around our Bruins, so it is no surprise that UCLA is mentioned. When UCLA is getting name dropped in a high school piece to lend legitimacy to a puff piece, you know the Bruin brand has cachet.