It was two weeks until Hawai’i began its football season and wide receiver Karsyn Pupunu was headed back home.
He was sent home not because he was leaving the team, but because his coaches knew he needed to be with his family.
A wildfire had ravaged his hometown of Lahaina on the island of Maui, destroying thousands of homes, businesses and cultural landmarks, while claiming the lives of at least 114 people with hundreds more still missing.
It was an unreal visit for Pupunu; he was back in the place he grew up in, but there was little left of what he always knew was home.