Merv Lopes, the legendary Chaminade basketball coach who guided the Silverswords to their 1982 upset of No. 1 Virginia, died on Thursday morning at age 92.
That Dec. 23 game, 77-72 at the Blaisdell Arena — then called the Honolulu International Center — put the NAIA Catholic school on the map and was the catalyst for the creation of the prestigious Maui Invitational college hoops tournament.
It is often still referred to as the biggest upset in college basketball history. UVA’s 7-foot-4 big man Ralph Sampson towered over Chaminade’s front line, but Lopes’ scrappy crew, a combination of local and mainland players like 6-foot-6 post Tony Randolph, would not be denied on that special night. They collapsed on Sampson and dared the Cavaliers to shoot from the outside.
They went on to be known as the “Giant Killers.”
One of his players on the 1982 team, Mark Rodrigues, wrote of Lopes’ passing in a Facebook post. Former Hawaii Tribune-Herald sports editor Bill O’Rear subsequently wrote a tribute to Lopes.
A source familiar with the situation confirmed Lopes’ death to Spectrum News on Thursday night.
O’Rear told Spectrum News that Lopes and the late Hawaii Hilo legend Jimmy Yagi were essential to fostering the rise of small college hoops in Hawaii, helping set a standard what would be picked up by Hawaii Pacific and Brigham Young-Hawaii.
“Merv Lopes pushed the envelope for a lot of Hawaii players in the 1970s and 1980s that wanted to play college basketball,” O’Rear said. “He combined local talent with some mainland recruits and built a small college program that could compete with a lot of D-I teams.”
Some of his last public appearances were at the 2022 Maui Invitational and a dedication of a Chaminade Hall of Fame display several days later.
His humble, blue-collar teams — he called the players “ham and eggers” at his last Maui appearance — also authored upsets of Division I teams Louisville and SMU.
He was not afraid to speak his mind. Lopes, accompanied by his wife Sheryl on Nov. 23, 2022, bemoaned the shifting dynamics of the Maui Invitational in a press room beneath the hallowed Lahaina Civic Center court. For the last several years, Chaminade, the Division II host, has been rotated out of the eight-team Maui field in even-numbered years so operator Kemper Sports could beef up the field for the nationally televised event.
“I just feel that Chaminade should be in it, no matter what. No matter what,” Lopes said. He got a round of applause from a room of typically staid media members and staff.
Lopes, a Nanakuli native, attended Waipahu High and transferred to Iolani School, where he credited Father Kenneth Bray with saving his life. He went on to play football at Compton (Calif.) College and San Jose State, then returned to Hawaii to work in the Department of Education.
Chaminade paid tribute to Lopes at its 2022 Hall of Fame ceremony 40 years after the Virginia upset.
Lopes won a state championship coaching Kailua High in 1972, defeating Saint Louis by 10 in the championship. He went to crosstown school Kalaheo and won an OIA championship there in 1976.
Mike Vasconcellos hired Lopes in 1977 to coach Chaminade’s fledgling program and he remained through 1989 for the first five editions of the Maui Invitational. The Silverswords beat Davidson in the first four-team edition of 1984, then called the Silversword Invitational at Konawaena High on Hawaii Island. The tournament moved to Maui the next year and came to be known as the Maui Classic, then Maui Invitational. It has regularly produced appearances from the blue bloods of college hoops — the likes of Duke, Kansas and North Carolina.
Maui resident and sports broadcaster Jordan Helle expressed sadness at Thursday’s news in a phone call. He recalled seeing Lopes step on the court for a halftime ceremony at the 2022 Maui, accompanied by a half dozen of his former players who clearly had affection for him.
“The sporting community on Maui has benefited for generations because of Coach Lopes and what he did with that Chaminade program, what they were able to do against Virginia, and what that led to,” Helle said. “I don’t know if they could have known what doors that was going to open down the road and, obviously what turned into … this crown jewel. It’s just kind of crazy to think about the domino effect.
“We point to that singular night, but a lot of it had to do with what he had established and what he had built up to kind of get that program to that point.”
Lopes’ 238-118 career record and .669 winning percentage are the best in Chaminade program history.
He lived the last several years of his life on Hawaii Island.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.
