Walter “Sneeze” Achiu, The NFL’s First AAPI Player
Yesterday’s story about early Asian and Pacific Islander football players noted that few were varsity stars, though several excelled in other sports. However, today we focus on Walter “Sneeze” Achiu, who grew up in Honolulu and starred at Dayton from 1922 through 1925. Achiu’s father emigrated from China to Hawaii, and his mother was a Native Hawaiian.
Achiu excelled in athletics at the St. Louis School before enrolling at Dayton in 1922; other St. Louis School graduates followed him the next year, likely because the Marianists, a Catholic order of nuns, ran both institutions.
Some of those profiled yesterday grew up in China or Japan, so they had little football background before college. Hawaii was a different situation due to the American military presence. Hawaiians played football early, so Achiu was an experienced player when he arrived at Dayton.
Several games into his freshman season, Achiu entered the game after an injury to the starting halfback and never looked back. A star halfback, he played baseball and captained the school’s first track team, besides wrestling at times. Fast as lightning, he was an excellent small-college player, though his press attention stemmed as much from his ethnicity as from his skills.
After completing his football eligibility in 1925, he served as a U of D football team manager in 1926 and graduated with an electrical engineering degree in 1927. During the 1926 season, he also played for the semi-pro Dayton Potters and Dayton Red Wings before joining the Dayton Triangles, an NFL doormat that spent most weekends on the road.
Achiu played with the Triangles during the 1926 and 1927 seasons, and part of the 1928 season, winning three NFL games during the period. Achiu started about half his games with the Triangles, when NFL rosters had only 18 players, but he was not a star at that level. Nevertheless, he started and played in games against legendary player-coaches George Halas, Curly Lambeau, and others.
Now, let’s talk about the 1928 season. You may recall from yesterday’s story that Sneeze Achiu came to my attention because of the Chicago Bears’ broadside below, which touted two Triangles players. It made sense for the Bears to promote Britton because he played fullback at Illinois during Red Grange’s days. Achiu, on the other hand, was likely considered an attraction for his ethnicity rather than for starring on the field.
Either way, what is most notable about Achiu’s appearance on the poster is that, while he started for the Triangles in early-season games against the Frankford Yellow Jackets, Chicago Cardinals, and Providence Steam Roller, Achiu left the team after the Providence game and signed with the Portsmouth Spartans, a non-NFL team. That means that when the Bears published the broadside on November 4, Achiu had not been a member of the Triangles team for two weeks, three weeks by game day. As the Bears and Triangles played in Chicago, Achiu was in Ironton, Ohio, playing for Portsmouth against the Ironton Tanks.
Although Achiu played with the Dayton Triangles in the 1926, 1927, and 1928 seasons, his NFL profile lists only two seasons, as does his Pro Football Reference profile. Although he played with Portsmouth in 1928 and 1929, the Spartans franchise, now the Detroit Lions, did not join the NFL until 1930.
The 1929 season appears to have been Achiu’s last in football. Achiu got involved in professional wrestling in 1926, and after his football days, he devoted himself to the ring, remaining a grappler into the 1950s. After his wrestling career, Achiu moved to the Pacific Northwest and was inducted into the University of Dayton’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1974.
In the end, Walter “Sneeze” Achiu was the first AAPI college football player to star on the field and the first to play in the NFL, making him a pioneer, despite earning limited recognition today. Many Pacific Islanders followed him, as did others whose ancestors lived across the ocean.
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Not an athlete to sneeze at!!