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Inside The Huskies

Hawaiian Daredevil Draws Husky Scholarship Offer

Madden Soliai played with reckless abandon during his freshman football season.
Dan Raley|
Hawaiian Daredevil Draws Husky Scholarship Offer
Hawaiian Daredevil Draws Husky Scholarship Offer

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Washington Huskies

He stalks the secondary like a mad man, only he's barely 15, hardly a man.

This would be the fearless Madden Soliai, a 5-foot-10, 160-pound cornerback for Kahuku High School, located on the northern tip of the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

Soliai just turned in a freshman football season for the ages played anywhere, whether it be on the mainland or in this exotic island chain.

He is part daredevil, part thrill-seeker, as this photo below clearly demonstrates.

This past week, the University of Washington recruiting staff offered a football scholarship to young Soliai, hoping he'll stay healthy enough over his next three high school seasons to use it.

He holds nine offers in all, adding Arizona, California, Colorado State, Hawaii, Oregon State, Nevada, Utah and Washington State to his list.

They all had to be impressed with Soliai, who stepped right into a starting position as a ninth-grader for a 12-2 team that won an open state championship while losing only to mainland teams in St. John Bosco from Bellflower, California, and St. Frances Academy from Baltimore, Maryland.

Soliai, who's visited the UW unofficially, plays courageously and quickly. He runs track and possesses a 10.98-second 100-meter time.

The corner finished his debut Kahuku season with 45 tackles; 6 blocked punts, including 2 in one game; 5 interceptions, including a pick six; and 6 pass break-ups.

As the below video shows, Soliai jumped a route against Campbell High in the playoffs and made that team play with a 50-yard interception return for a score.

He's all about making things happen on the football field.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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