Walter Achiu & the Histories We Do Not Cheer For

This Sunday, nearly 200 million people worldwide will watch the Super Bowl—or at least the commercials. The big names. The big moments. The endless stats. We celebrate the stars we’re told to remember.

This year, as fans talk legacy and greatness, I find myself thinking about the players whose stories never became part of football’s official mythology.

I’ve been a Seahawks fan since the Steve Largent and Jim Zorn days, and I love watching Jaxon Smith-Njigba turn a catch into a touchdown—Buckeye fan through and through. But when players like Tom Brady, Randy Moss, or Shedur Sanders come up in conversation, it’s easy to see how memory works in sports: we cheer what’s visible; what is in the headlines; what is repeated; and what is authorized.

Locally, though, I want to spotlight someone from southwest Ohio with Hawaiian and Chinese ancestry who has largely faded from the historical memory of the game: Walter Achiu. He was also known as Leong Tin Kit Achiu, a name he identified as his Native Hawaiian name. In a September 25, 1931, Cincinnati Post article, Achiu explained that he had “adopted his original Hawaiian name” during his professional wrestling career, reflecting a conscious decision about how he wished to be known.

photo credit: The Cincinnati Post

Achiu was born in Honolulu in 1902 to a Chinese father and a Hawaiian mother. He didn’t start playing football until his high school years, yet his speed and natural talent soon caught the attention of a Midwestern university.

Achiu started playing football for the University of Dayton in 1922 and quickly established himself as a standout three-sport athlete in football, baseball, and track. On the football field, he was known for his speed and “wiggle,” earning recognition as one of the team’s top halfbacks. He also saw time at quarterback and handled placekicking duties—evidence of both versatility and trust from his coaches. His story is not absent from the record, but it has faded, as football history elevates a handful of names into permanence while allowing others to blur at the margins.

Even as he was celebrated as a star—his speed and shiftiness on the field routinely noted—the archive repeatedly marginalized his humanity. He was framed as the “Oriental Wonder,” the “Chinaman,” or reduced to the nickname “Sneeze,” which ridiculed his surname rather than recognized his skill.

I shouldn’t be shocked, but I still find myself unsettled reading the 1922 headline from the Troy Daily News:

“Member Dayton F.B. Team Only ‘Chink’ Player in U.S.”

The language is openly racist. There’s no euphemism, no coded phrasing—just blunt dehumanization. And yet, embedded in that violence is something else the paper almost stumbles into acknowledging: Achiu may have been the only Asian & Pacific Islander American football player in the United States at the time.

Walter Achiu graduated from the University of Dayton in 1927—though a 1926 newspaper article reports he graduated in 1926—majoring in electrical engineering, and stayed on as a graduate student, serving as a trainer for the track team. He occupied a space adjacent to athletics even as his own athletic achievements went largely uncelebrated. In September 1926, he signed a contract to play professional football for the Cincinnati Potters, lining up at right halfback.

photo credit: The Cincinnati Post

One of the most significant—and least remembered—moments of his career came when the Potters played the Dayton Triangles to a scoreless tie. The Triangles were not just another opponent; they were one of the original franchises of the American Professional Football Association, the league that would soon be renamed the National Football League (1920).

The following year, Achiu signed with the Dayton Triangles themselves. With that move, he became the first Asian & Pacific Islander American to play in the NFL. He played two seasons—quietly, without fanfare, and without the kind of narrative that turns athletes into legends.

After football, Achiu transitioned into professional wrestling, first in Texas, where he won the Light Heavyweight Championship. About a year later, he returned to southwestern Ohio and wrestled in Cincinnati, continuing his career into the 1950s.

His life didn’t end when football did—but football history largely ended him when it chose what not to remember.

photo credit: University of Dayton

Walter Achiu’s story forces us to ask uncomfortable questions. Who gets preserved in the record? Whose achievements are footnoted, racialized, or reduced to spectacle? And how often do we mistake absence for insignificance?

As millions tune in this weekend, cheering for names they know by heart, it’s worth pausing for the players who helped build the game but were never allowed to belong to its mythology. Their histories are not missing. They were silenced.

And they’re still worth remembering.