TACOMA — Down to her final attempt in the 4A Girls Discus Throw at the WIAA Track & Field State Championships on Friday, Keira Isabelle Tupua sat in second place behind Ferris’ Cale Steinbaugh.
The Lake Stevens junior started practicing her form off to the side with a towel under the watchful eye of Rich Demeroutis, who used to coach her father, Niva, at Lynnwood High School back in the 1990s.
Niva was a star athlete at Lynnwood. He once qualified for the state championships in the shot put, discus and javelin throw in one season. He also excelled in football, and he was recruited by the University of Washington, where he played for the 1996 season.
Settling in Lake Stevens and raising four children in an athletic family — including Keira and her sister, Noelani, who each scored points for the Vikings at the state meet this weekend — Niva would often be the one coaching up Keira between throwing attempts at track meets.
But he wasn’t at Mount Tahoma High School on Friday. Niva suffered an injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down this past autumn. Not long after, his health declined to a point where he had to be hospitalized for two-and-a-half months. He has since been released, but is confined to a wheelchair.
“He’s done everything for me growing up,” Keira said. “He’s been with me through the hardest times, and right now he’s going through something really hard, especially our entire family. Me, I’m a competitor. I’m going to do my best to make my dad proud.”
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Keira entered this season with high expectations, but her results started to struggle without her biggest support system present. Demeroutis, who kept in limited touch with the Tupua family over the years, ran into Keira at the Viking Classic on April 19 while he was visiting a coaching friend.
After hearing about the severity of Niva’s condition, Demeroutis visited him in the hospital. Wanting to help out one of his former athletes, and citing the respect he has for the Tupua family, he offered to help coach Keira in his place while he recovered.
“Their focus on their children to excel in life is phenomenal,” Demeroutis said. “And if I could be a part of continuing that for him – because just in the experience I had with her, she has the greatest respect for her dad’s input and philosophy. It’s really a touching thing.”
Keira credits Demeroutis for picking her up and keeping her on track, but it still wasn’t the same without her father, whose impact can’t be overstated. Shortly after Niva returned home from the hospital earlier this season, Keira managed to break a personal record.
Niva’s health was not strong enough to make the trip down to Tacoma, and his wife, May, stayed back to look after him. Instead, Keira’s aunt and uncle came to support her and Noelani, while Demeroutis and the Lake Stevens coaching staff played their part in guiding her through competition.
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Tupua hit 133 feet, 1 inch on her first attempt, but failed to exceed it on the next four. To move into first, she would have to eclipse Steinbaugh’s 142-11. With her personal best being 145-00, it was certainly possible.
She threw 131-01 on her fifth attempt, and Demeroutis could tell she wasn’t pleased. With Tupua pretty firmly entrenched in second place, Demeroutis told her she could pass on the next throw if she wasn’t feeling right. Tupua gave him a look that made it clear that was not an option.
“Well let’s amp it up,” Demeroutis told her. “Let’s go put some mojo in it.”
Tupua stepped into the circle, went through her form that she had been practicing just moments earlier, and heaved the disc far enough to make it a close call. She picked up her towel and slowly walked out of the circle, waiting to hear the result of the measurement.
140 feet, two inches. Less than three feet shy of what she needed to move into first place.
“I just really had to go at it (on) my last attempt,” Tupua said later. “I’m glad I hit that 140-mark. The breakthrough from 130 to 140 was pretty big. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t compete the way I wanted to.”
After the measurement was announced, Tupua looked up to the sky and threw her towel over her face. She walked to longtime Lake Stevens coach Jeff Page, who took her in for a hug. Tupua, towel still over her head, started sobbing.
“She expected all season long to be a state champion,” Page said. “Up until the guy said, ‘140, two inches,’ she was going to be a state champion. She was going to do it.”
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Tupua apologized for not winning the title for Page, who is retiring from the program after 47 years and 32 as head coach, but Page was anything but disappointed. He pointed to the fact that she smashed the school record by 16 feet earlier this season, and that she and Noelani were the two main reasons the Vikings had any points on the scoreboard at the state meet.
“She’s really disappointed. I’m disappointed for her, but I’m not disappointed in her,” Page said. “She’s a hell of a competitor, and she did great. … (At) state, you can have the highest of highs, and then you can turn around and have the lowest of lows. If you’re a competitive kid, you come down here with the expectation of doing something. So it was hard to see her that upset.”
Despite carrying the weight of her father’s condition, Tupua not only placed second in the discus throw, but also placed fourth in the shot put with a personal record of 40-03.5 on Thursday. That was when Page learned about Niva’s condition, because Keira was upset he wasn’t there to see it.
Tupua largely kept the burden to herself, but Lake Stevens throws coach Josh Vail was able to tell something was going on earlier this season when he stopped seeing Niva at meets. He officially learned the news before spring break.
“I know a lot of kids in that situation…” said Vail, who started to get emotional. “So many kids would have just pushed everything else aside and been like, ‘Hey, there’s stuff going on in my family, and that’s where my priority is.’ And it’s not that it wasn’t her priority.
“I think the thing that stung the most for her is like, she’s trying to do this stuff for her dad.”
Tupua pushed through the turbulence in her personal life and continued competing. Vail didn’t want her to boil her whole season down into one moment. He hoped she could recognize the achievement of placing second at a state championship, as well as the success she experienced the entire season.
Tupua placed fourth in the discus throw at last year’s state meet, and after stepping down from this year’s awards podium on Friday, she acknowledged that getting second was “pretty awesome.” Instead of the result, her disappointment lay elsewhere.
“I feel a little sad that I’m a little higher up on the podium without him being here,” she said.
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Tupua’s season is not over. She will compete at Nike Nationals in a few weeks, where she hopes to set a new personal record. After that, it will be back to the drawing board for her senior season.
By then, everyone involved hopes Niva can be back at her side, from a physical standpoint.
In every other facet, he never left.
“I’ve come a long way,” Tupua said. “I really wanted to do good today for my dad, and hopefully bring home a state title, but there’s always next year.”
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