
Joe Onosai’s fascinating athletic career took him from the housing projects of Kuhio Park Terrace to the Dallas Cowboys training camp, to the doorstep of becoming the World’s Strongest Man (he made it as high as third in the competition). He was drafted by the Cowboys in the sixth round of the 1987 NFL Draft, but during training camp he suffered a serious neck injury and doctors advised him to quit football.According to an April 25, 2006 feature article in the Honolulu AdvertiserÉ “My whole life was (geared toward) making the NFL, but that dream was cut short,” said Onosai, who is now Word of Life’s athletic director and assistant pastor. “But what I learned is that who you become as a person is more important than whatever achievements or honors you get. The lessons you learn in athletics will take you farther than any trophy or award.”So that’s what I try to pass on to my kids Ñ when you face adversity, keep fighting. Sometimes things in life don’t work out the way you want, but don’t quit. Just press forward.”