Years after retirement, Victorino still focused on building Field of Dreams | News, Sports, Jo

Shane Victorino talks with participants in the golf portion of the 15th annual Shane Victorino Foundation Celebrity Dinner and Golf Classic on Nov. 19 at the Wailea Gold Course. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos

WAILEA — While things change, things will stay very much the same for Shane Victorino and his foundation going forward.

Victorino — the two-time World Series champion, two-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner out of St. Anthony High School — sat down with The Maui News prior to the 15th annual Shane Victorino Foundation Celebrity Dinner and Golf Classic last month to discuss his plans for charitable work in Maui County going forward.

“Yeah, it’s always important, like you said the word, gratifying,” Victorino said before setting out to play in the golf tournament at the Wailea Gold Course. “It’s something that I love doing, I do it for the right intentions, and I do it because it’s about the kids. It’s about who are benefitting.”

Victorino makes his current home in Las Vegas, but Maui is where he grew up and a place that will never leave his heart.

“To be able to come back and look at my community and to continue to look at needs and see where those needs are, and to be able to use my platform and what I was able to achieve and continue to give back, it’s beyond gratifying,” Victorino said. “It’s humbling, it’s honoring, because you’re still able to do it.”

Victorino (center) poses with Kris Galon (from left), La‘akea Bissen, Buddy Nobriga and Joshua Nobriga on Nov. 19. Taking the photo is Harold Giger.

The final major league season of his 12-year career was 2015 with the Los Angels Angels, his fifth team.

“I think for me being away from the game as long as I have I look at it that way: How am I still able to do it? But, again, you understand the legacy and the impact you want to leave behind and that’s why I continue to do it,” he said.

Victorino noted that his foundation was recently part of launching a field house on Lanai and there’s a lot more in store.

Victorino’s father, Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino, was at the event just a couple weeks after his re-election bid had fallen short.

“I’ve been on record as saying one day I want to build a ‘Field of Dreams,’ “ Shane Victornio said, without specifically saying what that entailed. “There’s been talks between my father and I during his candidacy and while he was in office, and we talked about it and it wasn’t as simple as we were hoping as far as getting to that end site.

Shane Victorino jokes with participants in his fundraising golf event on Nov. 19.

“There obviously have been some conversations that have been started and that’s still my dream is that someday we’ll have an opportunity to come back to this place, you know, allow kids from Hawaii to play on their own home soil, to host tournaments.”

Victorino was surrounded by several former MLB standouts at his golf event, including Dustin Pedroia, Andruw Jones, Cole Hamels, and fellow local MLB players Kanekoa Texeira and Shane Komine.

Other celebrities in the field included surfer Ian Walsh, University of Hawaii baseball coach Rich Hill and Keoni DeRenne, currently a coach for the Kansas City Royals.

Texeira is a cousin of Victorino’s — he is currently a minor league manager in the Atlanta Braves organization who lives on Molokai in the offseason.

“It’s been going on for 15 years — I mean usually when guys are out of the game they stop doing what he’s been doing, but Shane continues to keep doing what he’s doing,” Texeira said. “I mean, helping out all the communities of Hawaii and sharing his wealth and his growth. It’s amazing, man, amazing.”

Victorino added his goals have not changed with his father’s term as mayor winding down.

“Again, this is big-picture thinking,” he said. “The fact that it’s actually a lot closer than it’s ever been, to the point where I’ve actually looked and come up with renderings of what it would look like and locations and potential sites that I have actually reached out to people and said, ‘Is there an opportunity?’

“It’s real and that’s the thing that I want people to understand.”

Shane Victorino rarely talks about what he has in mind to promote helping in the Maui County community.

“You know, my dad has done what he’s done and I’ve done what I’ve done,” he said. “I’ve always kept things quiet, I’ve never been about coming out and saying that and I’ve always said that. I’ve always said I always wait quietly, sit in the bushes, I get things done, I get it to the finish line, so there’s a lot of things, not just my foundation.”

He said there is also work being done to benefit Iao School, “an intermediate school that I grew up in and my grandma had a piece of land, my grandpa where I grew up and I’m looking at potentially, with the Department of Education, looking at that piece of land and how can I expand that school?”

Victorino wanted to make clear that he is helping with a lot of projects that are being developed for Maui County.

“I’ve been working on these things, but I’m not gong to get to the point where I’m going to do it because people say, ‘Oh well this is happening or that is happening with your family, that’s just why you’re talking about it,’ “ he said. “No. Now that this is said and done with and he’s put in the position — and congratulations to Mr. (Mayor elect Richard) Bissen and their team — and what they’re going to do moving forward, but don’t think that my family and I have sat back and haven’t done things.

“Just because we don’t go out in public and let the world know what we’re doing. I’m a quiet guy and I do my things behind the scenes, so these are some of the things that I’ve been working on and my father has been working on as a family to make this community better.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

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