On a midsummer Friday two weeks ago — traditionally a slow time in local sports — KHON sports director Kanoa Leahey was busy from the get-go.

The local events calendar may have been light as usual in July, but the national and international sports scene was buzzing with activity: Major League Baseball, PGA and LPGA Tour tournaments, NBA Summer League, pro surfing.

And with Hawai'i-raised athletes involved in all of them, Leahey easily was able to fill his sportscast with local stories.

"It's always been sort of a rule to find a Hawai'i connection (in national reports)," Leahey said. "But now we have so many Hawai'i athletes competing at the highest level in so many different sports, it's changed the dynamic of how we do our show. I mean, the first thing I do when I come in now is look to see how Shane Victorino did, what did Kurt Suzuki do? I do think, in my memory, this era has the most Hawai'i athletes at the highest levels. It amazes me."

NFL training camps are opening up this week with their usual heavy representation from Hawai'i. But this is believed to be the first summer with two everyday starters in Major League Baseball — outfielder Victorino with the Philadelphia Phillies and catcher Suzuki with the Oakland A's — being Hawai'i high school grads. It's also the first time Hawai'i has had two full-time PGA Tour members — Dean Wilson and Parker McLachlin — competing during the same summer.

Michelle Wie is not an LPGA member yet, but she competes regularly in Tour events and remains one of the most popular golfers in the world.

Derrick Low just completed summer league action for the Dallas Mavericks, an extremely rare NBA presence for Hawai'i.

The Islands also will be well-represented at the Summer Olympics two weeks from now, highlighted by gold-medal hopeful Bryan Clay in the decathlon and soccer standout Natasha Kai.

Boxer Brian Viloria is training for a world title fight, and mixed martial arts star B.J. Penn already wears a championship belt.

"There's been a terrific explosion of local athletes playing at these high levels, and it's a splendid salute to the sports participants we have here," said Les Keiter, who spent more than 50 years as a sports broadcaster in Hawai'i and the Mainland. "I first came here in 1949, left after a few years and came back in 1970 and have been here since. And in all that period, I don't recall having this many top athletes from our community playing prominent roles in so many different sports. This current explosion is unbelievable."

Hawai'i has a long history of athletes making it to the top level of their respective sports, dating to Olympic gold-medal swimmer Duke Kahanamoku in the early 1900s, Henry Oana playing Major League Baseball in the 1930s, Charlie Ane earning NFL All-Pro status in the 1950s, Ted Makalena playing on the PGA Tour in the 1960s.

The state eventually produced so many pro football players, a TV show featuring them called "NFL Hawaiians" became an annual summertime staple here in the 1980s.

But with few exceptions, many of the top-level Hawai'i athletes played reserve roles or did not stay very long at the top.

That does not seem to be the case now. Victorino and Suzuki have firm places in the everyday lineup and often have been spark plugs for their teams.

Wilson finished third in two PGA events this season — including last week's U.S. Bank Championship — and entered this week ranked 49th on the PGA money list. McLachlin finished fifth at the AT&T Classic and 10th at the Sony Open in Hawai'i.

Kai and men's counterpart Brian Ching are the first Hawai'i athletes to make their national team for soccer, and Penn has become one of the signature faces for the fast-growing sport of MMA.

"We've had athletes make it to the top before, but I think it was more scattered," Leahey said. "Benny Agbayani was quite a phenomenon for those couple years (with baseball's New York Mets), but he was in a big city and that helped. Shane and Kurt, they are major parts of their teams. Derrick Low having a brush with the NBA, the fact that he is even in this position ... when I was in high school (in the mid-1990s) I could not even imagine anyone from Hawai'i having that opportunity. It just blows me away."

Leahey attributes the sudden increase in top athletes partly to the development of organized youth sports, and camps and clinics that are available here and on the Mainland.

"There's widespread accessibility now, the number of quality camps they can attend has increased 10-fold," Leahey said. "The coaches are there and the kids are learning from the best of the best, they're being exposed to proper skills from a young age."

Leahey's father, Jim, a Hawai'i sports broadcaster since the early 1970s, said parents' dedication and community support also contributes to the growth of young athletes.

"There's a nurturing aspect here, a lot of people are willing to sacrifice for the kids," Jim Leahey said. "Our society loves sports, so the opportunity has been there for our young people to succeed. Our state has a small population but per capita we produce a lot of good athletes, and that's always been a point of pride with us. This might just be an age of excellence, where a lot of our athletes are getting to the big time and performing well, so Hawai'i should be proud of itself."

Neil Everett, an ESPN SportsCenter anchor who lived in Hawai'i for 14 years, said media exposure also has helped develop more and better athletes recently.

"A guy like Jon Stanley was a great volleyball player back in the 1960s, but he never got any national attention," Everett said. "There was no ESPN or Direct TV back then, so there wasn't the opportunity to publicize what he was doing. Now a kid on Maui can watch Shane Victorino and see highlights every night, and the dream gets mixed in with reality."

It's become a reality show that plays itself out every night on the local sportscasts, even in July.

"Making it to the top level is extremely tough, only a select few can do it," Kanoa Leahey said. "Being born and raised here, it makes me feel so proud when we get to show highlights of these local athletes who made it. I wouldn't have it any other way."

Read his blog on prep sports at http://preptalk.honadvblogs.com.