For a second straight year, the Cincinnati Bengals can earn a spot in the Super Bowl if they can win at Kansas City on Sunday. No one in Hawaii is more interested in the outcome than Dr. Ed Miyawaki, who is a minority owner of the franchise.
For a second straight year, the Cincinnati Bengals can earn a spot in the Super Bowl if they can win at Kansas City on Sunday. No one in Hawaii is more interested in the outcome than Dr. Ed Miyawaki, who is a minority owner of the franchise.
KITV4’s Rick Quan sat down with Miyawaki at his office to get his thoughts about the upcoming AFC championship game.
Dr. Ed Miyawaki and Rick Quan.
After watching his Bengals dominate the Bills in the snow at Buffalo, Dr. Ed Miyawaki is feeling good about Cincinnati's chances against the Chiefs, especially with quarterback Joe Burrow playing at such a high level.
"That's phenomenal. That's god given, you know. You can't teach those things. You just go out there and play the way he plays, all we have to do is give him time, just a split second,” Miyawaki said.
Cincinnati has beaten Kansas City three straight times, and Chiefs’ star quarterback Patrick Mahomes is nursing a high ankle sprain, but Miyawaki still expects him to play at a high level.
"He's an athlete, he's a gifted athlete. I played baseball when I was hurt. When you're in a baseball, football game, or in a situation like that, a championship game, for some reason, you don't even think about your injury. You just go out there and play, and you want to win,” Miyawaki said.
The Kansas City franchise is special to Miyawaki. In the mid-70s, he cold called Lamar Hunt, the team's founder and convinced him to give Punahou grad Arnold Morgado a tryout.
Arnold Morgado’s football trading card.
"He not only made the team and played for four and a half years as a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, through that connection, my wife and I kept our relationship with the Hunts and we became very, very good friends," he said.
Due to that friendship, Hunt would help Miyawaki become the first Asian American to own part of an NFL franchise in 1993. Miyawaki still has a picture of Hunt hanging on his office wall.
“I owe him everything,” Miyawaki said.
Picture of Lamar Hunt that Dr. Miyawaki keeps on his wall in his office.
Hunt passed in 2006, but Miyawaki remains close to his son, Clark, who is the team's chairman and CEO.
During their 55-year history, the Bengals have made it to three Super Bowls, but lost all of them, including last year's three-point defeat to the Los Angeles Rams.
Miyawaki would love to give the Bengals 87-year-old owner Mike Brown one more shot at the Lombardi trophy.
“We've become good friends. And for me, I like to see the team win this game for Mike Brown. He's getting old. He's getting old just like me. You have a hard time walking up the stairs. But I have great love for Mike and his family and if we get a chance to win this game for Mike, it would make my day,” he said.
The Bengals face the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. HST. The winner will go on to face the winner of the NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl.
