HONOLULU (KHON2) — Who he is is where he comes from. Lahaina-grown Ben Zeigler-Namoa is a Maui boy through and through.
It’s the University of Hawaii star baseball player’s walkout song when he comes to the plate at Les Murakami Stadium — a reminder of where he started.
“That was me in Lahaina and Napili as a small town kid. I was playing there in that field when I was five, six years old. I’ve been in those shoes so many times, bounced around the island of Maui,” Zeigler-Namoa said.
That Maui-built keiki ended up playing for the entire state of Hawaii as he grew into the man we see today, but like many players, BZN was away from home playing summer ball in Wisconsin in 2023. That’s when devastation struck his hometown on the fateful night of Aug. 8, 2023.
“I saw on the news, and I thought it was probably just another fire,” Zeigler-Namoa said of the wildfire that ripped through Lahaina and destroyed the majority of the town that evening. “When I heard, I tried to call my mom, and it didn’t go through. I was like,’ Oh, this is actually for real.’ I panicked.”
Ben is incredibly close to his mom, Kim, who was living on Maui’s west side at the time.
“I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep for probably 72 hours. Still played games and everything. And then finally, one day, out of the blue, I got an email that barely sent through for like, a list of 50 people and like one message that they could send. And my mom was in it, and I got to see it, and I was like, okay, she told me to just, she was good, and just to relax and stay,” he said.
When Ben came home, he sprang into action along with 50 other University of Hawaii athletes and staff members. They flew to Maui to contribute to relief efforts.
Two years after that trip, he’s still pushing for Maui to receive more help in rebuilding.
“We’re two years out, and people still put a spotlight on it, but obviously it’s not as big of a spotlight as I think it should be,” he said. “There’s many difficult things that are still happening there, and the rebuilding process is very strenuous and long. It’s been slow to watch, to say the least, and just talking to family over there and everything, like, everyone’s starting to move past it a little bit like emotionally and mentally, but yeah, I think it’s scarred a lot of people, and people have to realize that it’s still a very touchy subject, and they still need help at the end of the day. And I just hope I’m a little bit more of a beacon of hope for one more year.”
Now he’s back for his senior year, coming off a fantastic 2025 campaign, which gave him All-Big West Conference honors on the field and the All-Big West academic award as an economics major. Kim watches proudly from the stands during home games.
Her son is a shining example of what our keiki running on the fields can become.
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“I just want to inspire someone like me, maybe someone who didn’t have it out as much as other kids did, to have an opportunity and just see that if they work hard, very hard, and really want it, that this is absolutely a dream that’s possible.”