To national media and casual baseball fan alike, the emergence of Waipi'o as the best Little League team in the world might have seemed like a spontaneous occurrence, the team of unflappable 12- and 13-year-olds mysteriously overrunning the South Williamsport field like mushrooms on the lawn after a warm summer evening.

But those close to the program understood this year's breakthrough as a part of the natural progression of a well-coached, highly skilled, unbendingly tough team with years of history behind it.

Head coach Timo Donahue, an all-star short stop for Damien Memorial School and the University of Washington who spent four years in the minor leagues, has been coaching his son Christian since Christian was a precocious 5-year-old playing T-ball.

The team that would eventually rule the Little League landscape began to take shape in earnest four years later with the additions of Iolana Akau and Kainoa Fong.

Khade Paris and Keelen Obedoza would join a year later, giving Timo Donahue the raw ingredients.

"From the very beginning, we preached discipline," says Timo Donahue. "There was a lot of yelling and screaming early on, but we tapered off as they got older because they came to understand what they were supposed to do — and they did it."

Not a big fan of running, Donahue enforces his rules not with laps around the field, but by making offenders sing, dance or tell a joke in front of their teammates.

"They're a quiet group of kids," Donahue said. "So usually they'd rather dance than speak or sing."

Key to Donahue's development of the team was a commitment by him and his assistants to teach the game to the level of his precocious charges.

Where more traditional coaches instructed their players to initiate a double play by fielding, turning, taking a step and then throwing, Donahue taught his players from age 8 to simply field, pivot and throw. Thus, the team learned how to apply speed, precision and efficiency to a game in which key plays can be realized or lost in fractions of a second.

Likewise, where other coaches tell their players to run the bases on their coaches' instructions without worrying about where the ball might be, Donahue trained his team to track the ball and make their own decisions. In doing so, he developed in his players the ability to think the game and react accordingly.

"There were people who looked at what we were doing and thought we were crazy," Donahue said. "But I felt that with the players we had, if I coached them the usual way, it would be too basic."

In Christian, Donahue was willing and able to demonstrate the concepts Donahue tried to preach. Off the field, Donahue and his son talked about baseball fundamentals and philosophy, whether in the car ride home from practice or at meals or in front of the family TV.

"It's not easy being the coach's kid, but he's always been able to handle that added pressure very well," Donahue said.

Over the years, Christian has proven himself capable of hitting both for power and average. He's also the team's best base-runner and a reliable pitcher.

His teammates have also proven themselves championship-worthy with their personal development and commitment to each other.

Akau, for example, brings unusual agility and athleticism to the catcher position and is also a skilled pitcher.

Though slowed by tendinitis in his elbow recently, Paris is considered a premier hitter with the confidence and will to come up big at key moments.

Trevor Ling, who played for Donahue at age 9, switched teams for a couple of years, then returned this season, is a consistent winner and the team's "unsung hero," according to Donahue.

As the team grew together, Donahue and his charges earned milestone vindications for their efforts with a 48-game win streak and three consecutive trips to the Western Regionals championships in San Bernardino, Calif.

During the run, Waipi'o picked up key pieces in Tanner Tokunaga, Pikai Winchester, and Caleb Duhay.

Tokunaga, who grew five inches over the past year, is an explosive offensive force, as evidenced by his two homers in the championship game versus Mexico.

Winchester, who helped to carry the offensive load when the team struggled to get hits in the regionals, was one of their most productive players throughout (11 hits in 17 at-bats in the World Series).

Duhay, who moved from third base to left field in the World Series, is a high-volume hitter and key defensive presence.

Yet, for all of the players' individual abilities, the team is a team because of the chemistry it developed over years, chemistry that allowed it to overcome an initial loss in the regionals, an uncharacteristic run of futile hitting early on (it hit under .200 in the regionals), even the 5-1 final-inning deficit the team faced against Lake Charles in the World Series.

"Chemistry is the reason we win," Donahue said.

In addition to the countless hours of practice — eight hours a week during the regular season, maybe double that in preparation for the postseason — the players spend much of their free time together as well, attending University of Hawai'i baseball games, noshing pizza in left field after games, sleeping over at each other's houses, even buzzcutting their hair in support of Winchester's cancer-stricken brother, Paliku.

"They spend more time with each other than with some of their own relatives," Donahue said.

That sort of togetherness translates to a greater commitment to the team and a greater willingness to play harder for each other, Donahue said.

It also made the players immune to the low expectations of them held by the so-called experts.

In nearly every matchup from the regionals to the title game, Donahue said, Waipi'o was considered an underdog.

"We hit sub-.200 early on and that's all that some people saw," Donahue said. "Sometimes they saw the talented kid on the other side and they didn't give us a chance. That didn't bother me as a coach, but it did irritate me that they didn't seem to respect our players.

"In the end, though, it worked out better for us," he said.

Indeed, while there were those who may not have seen Waipi'o coming, everyone now knows that they've arrived.