Wahine Volleyball: 40 Years Coaching Hawaii's Team 9780824853303

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Wahine VOLL

EYBALL

Wahine VOLLEYBALL

4 0 Y E AR S C OAC H I N G HAWA I‘I’S TEA M

DAVE SHOJI W ITH AN N M I LLE R

A L AT I T U D E 2 0 B O O K

s

U N I V E R S I T Y O F H AWA I ‘ I P R E S S

s

HONOLULU

© 2 0 1 4 u nive r sit y of h awa i‘ i p r e ss All rights reserved 19 18 17 16 15 14

5 4 3 2 1

Published with the support of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Shoji, Dave, author. Wahine volleyball : 40 years coaching Hawai‘i’s team / Dave Shoji with Ann Miller. pages cm Includes index. “A latitude 20 book.” ISBN 978-0-8248-5141-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8248-5142-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Shoji, Dave. 2. Volleyball coaches—Hawaii—Biography. 3. Volleyball for women—Coaching—Hawaii. 4. University of Hawaii at Manoa—Volleyball. I. Miller, Ann (Sportswriter), author. II. Title. GV1015.26.S48A3 2014 796.32507'7 dc23 2014029554 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. d es i gned b y j u lie m at su o- c h u n p ri nte d b y t h om son - sh or e

Dedicated to the deserving, loyal, and committed ohana that is Wahine Volleyball, especially former Women’s Athletic Director, Dr. Donnis Thompson; my wife, Mary; daughter, Cobey Hutzler; sons, Kawika and Erik; in-laws, Jens and Jeanne Tennefos; parents, Dr. Kobe and Chizuko Shoji; and all my loving family members, players, and staff members.

Most important, this book is dedicated to all the unbelievable, incredible fans,

No. 1 in the nation!

CONTENTS Preface

ix

1

The Beginning of Something Special

1

2

From Relocation Camp to Klum Gym

15

3

A Following Like No Other

25

4

Climbing Back to the Top

37

5

Twice Is Nice

52

6

Recruiting: Like Looking for a Girlfriend

62

7

Coaching: Technique, Tactics, and Trust

73

8

1987: Winning in All the Best Ways

88

9

Impact Players

102

A Volleyball Home in the Islands

118

11

Memorable Matches

129

12

Only in Hawai‘i

142

13

A Point Here and There

153

14

Coaches, Friends, and Rivals

168

15

On the Road, Again and Again

177

16

Help Wanted, and Received

188

17

Looking Ahead

195

Appendix 1: Dave Shoji Coaching Records and Statistics

209

Appendix 2: Wahine Records and Milestones

213

Appendix 3: Assistants

221

Index

223

10

color plates follow page 132

PREFACE

Simply put, I love sports! All sports, from my hanabata Little League baseball days in East Oahu to present-day World Cup soccer. I read every single word in the sports page every day—yes, even the box scores of every major league baseball game. It’s everyone’s dream to do something in life that they love, and what could be more fitting for me than to COACH for a living? To be honest, it could have been any sport, take your pick— baseball, basketball, tennis, golf, hockey . . . well, maybe not hockey. But you get the point. To be involved in athletics every single day of your adult life is a dream come true for me. The details of how this has come about are discussed in this book, which has been talked about for years and has finally come together. Trust me, writing a book is no easy task. First, I’m a terrible writer. Second, I’m a man of few words. And third, there was no way for me to begin to know how to start this complicated process. So I asked the person who knows more about the program and more about me than just about anybody in the world besides my wife, Mary, to help. That would be Ann Miller, recently retired longtime sportswriter for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. I’m sure by now she wishes she wouldn’t have agreed to help; this was way more work than either of us anticipated. But Ann has been a trooper—putting up with my fickle ways, ignoring her phone calls for days, paying for my coffee on countless mornings at Starbucks, combing the archives for details and pictures, interviewing dozens of ex-players and coaches. All this for an undetermined, ambiguous pay scale. The book chronicles my early life and gives some idea how it all came together, culminating in forty years of coaching the same sport at the same institution. It’s truly been a remarkable four decades, and I doubt whether this can be done again anytime soon, knowing the climate of today’s intercollegiate athletics. It starts with my athletic background in several sports, which gave me a solid foundation in

ix

x

PREFACE

understanding what it takes to win, and how to achieve the most out of every situation one can be in. I developed an understanding of how important fundamentals are in any sport, and that the technical and motor skills need to be taught correctly or the athlete will always struggle. The tactical part of sports came easy to me. When to call time-out, when to make a critical substitution, when to make small adjustments on offense or defense were things I just “felt” or had a hunch about. Luckily, it was the right move most of the time. I was able to change my coaching philosophy when it needed to change, because coaches who don’t make changes through the years don’t last as coaches. I’ve changed drills, systems, assistant coaches, practices, weight training, conditioning, and, most important, changed the way I’ve treated the student athletes. The athlete of today is way different than the athlete of the 1970s and ’80s. Both work really hard, but what motivates one now is radically different than what worked back then. I love working with these women, and it’s what keeps me young nowadays. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Dr. Donnis Thompson. Nothing would have happened without her taking a chance on hiring a young, untested, inexperienced Dave Shoji back in 1975. What she could have seen in me, I’m not sure, but I am forever grateful for her decision. Little did I know it would shape my life into a blessed one, far beyond my wildest dreams. My family means the most to me as they have stood by me through the good times and the bad, and there have been as many bad as good times. Mary has been the guiding light, always in the background, but always there to support and offer her unbiased opinion, and she doesn’t pull any punches. Cobey, the oldest of three children, is a Punahou and Michigan grad now married into the coaching life (I warned her). Her husband, Coleman Hutzler, is a football coach at Florida, and we have our first grandbaby, Micah. Kawika, firstborn son, is an Iolani and Stanford grad who is never shy to tell me what our team needs to do, and he has a new wife, Megan Bridgman. Erik is a Punahou and Stanford grad who watches every Wahine game online, no matter where he is in the world, and stresses as much as I do. These die-hard UH fans still ask me, “How did our team—pick the sport—do?” I can’t leave out, or name, all our extended families for their loyalty, too. Thanks to brothers, sisters, grandparents, parents, cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces, and nephews. I have many, many people to thank for their contribution to Wahine volleyball. My support staff has done the bulk of the work, mostly behind the scenes, some very visible. Every assistant coach over the forty years has given much to me and the program, and I can’t thank them enough. Also, the medical staff, equipment managers, media relations people, athletic directors, arena staff, academic and administrative staff, and those in facilities management need to be recognized for always being there for us. Lastly, I would like to thank the athletes who have come through the program throughout the

PREFACE

xi

forty years. Without you, there would be no Rainbow Wahine volleyball. Thank you for who you are. I wouldn’t change a thing! People ask me all the time, What was your best win, worst loss, who was your best player, who was your most favorite player, which championship was the best? The answers may be in this book! I hope you enjoy it.

1

THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING SPECIAL I was up on the stage because there was no place else to sit, or stand. It was the smallest gym I’d ever seen. To be honest, it wasn’t even called a gym. It was an “activity room” at a small Catholic school in Santa Barbara, California, barely big enough to hold a volleyball court, with a low ceiling and no space to walk on the floor without interrupting the game. And there, playing in this tiny gym, was Diane Sebastian, a middle blocker and one of the most sought-after women’s volleyball recruits in 1978. We had never recruited anybody quite like her—a six-foot, lean athlete who was versatile enough to dominate in the front row and the back. The University of Hawai‘i hardly ever tried to recruit that kind of player because we just weren’t able to lure top players like Diane. The best players always got offers from USC or UCLA, where often parents could watch all their games and players were able to drive home occasionally. There weren’t many athletes like Diane back then. She was a complete package. There were very few six-foot players, period, and most were on Utah State’s team. Even today, she would be someone who would make a coach go, “Wow!” My brother Tom coached at nearby San Marcos High in Santa Barbara. He had told me about her initially, but that didn’t give me much of an advantage—all the major college coaches already knew about her. Diane had offers from just about everywhere. I knew we had a slim shot at her, but I also knew she was the one who would make us legitimate. I just had to persuade her to give Hawai‘i a chance. I had a feeling that Diane was the one player we needed to get over the hump and actually have a chance to win. We were good before that—finished in the top three nationally every year—but we never had a big-time player. We had all the other ingredients. We had good setters and good outside hitters, but we lacked a legitimate, big force in the middle, which Diane could give us.

1

2

SHOJI

I was surprised when Diane said yes. It was probably a much bigger deal at that time than it would be now. For someone to say no to UCLA and yes to Hawai‘i was absolutely unheard of—but definitely very welcome! She said she only had a partial offer from UCLA. Honestly, I didn’t know that UCLA gave a partial scholarship, but I was happy they did. Recruiting her shaped the volleyball program, but it really shaped Diane’s life, too. She met her husband (Tom Pestolesi) here, and it gave her a career and a good life. It probably shaped a lot of our players’ lives. Being in the program and winning gives you a sense that you can accomplish something and no one can ever take it away from you. That you won—you are going to have that your whole life. I had no idea then that this was going to be the beginning of something special—in Hawai‘i and collegiate volleyball. But by the end of 1979, the world had changed for me and for Hawai‘i. This team, with Diane playing a large part, won the university’s first national team championship. I was thirty-three and in my fifth year as head coach, working part-time for $1,200 a season and still wondering what I was going to do “when I grew up.” We suddenly had seven seniors in 1979. Angie Andrade came home for her senior season after playing at BYU. She was a tremendous setter and great player who fit in right away. Diana McInerny transferred home the year before. Terry Malterre returned for her final season after spending time with the national team. That really made the team because now we had two big-time middles. We had a lot of talented players and playing time became an issue in the middle of the season. It was not always a happy team. They all wanted to play, but it just wasn’t possible. Playing time, or actually starting and finishing a match, is important to almost all players, especially if they have started in previous seasons or matches. Part of it is ego, part wanting to contribute to the team. Those who don’t start have to know why and how they might be used as a substitute. If these players accept it, then your chemistry is better. Chemistry is crucial in the women’s game—without it you can’t win a championship. A coach’s decision on matters like this must be well thought out, based on performance in games and practices. It’s an ongoing evaluation, day to day, week to week. You must be objective and fair, but firm in your decisions. The team must respect the coach’s decisions, or there’s turmoil. Figuring out the ’79 lineup was a real challenge. Waynette Mitchell had played middle blocker all her life and was an All-American in 1978 and suddenly didn’t have a regular role. She and Marga Stubblefield, runner-up at the 1975 AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) golf championship, were the first two to get scholarships when UH started a women’s athletic program. Waynette would also graduate with a top-five national finish in discus and shot put. Diana McInerny was a really good setter, but we had three good setters in 1979. Most of the year,

DIANE SEBASTIAN PESTOLESI Wahine volleyball, 1978–1981

Dave didn’t have a lot to say that first day in Santa

be happy to talk to me about my academic aspirations.

Barbara, but I remember that when I thanked him for

It seemed like a good fit.

taking the time to come see me play, he said, “I’ve seen quite enough.”

Unfortunately the fit wasn’t great at the beginning. Some of the locals assumed that because I was on the

Dave was very mellow, and I wasn’t sure if that was

cover of Volleyball Monthly magazine with a University

a positive comment until two days later when he called

of Hawai‘i jersey before I ever got there, that I was cocky

and offered me a full scholarship.

and conceited. So right off the bat, there were harsh

Although I had fallen in love with Hawai‘i from the previous year, when I had an opportunity to play there as a junior in high school, ever since I was a kid I always thought I wanted to go to UCLA if I had the chance.

words from teammates regarding what they would do with “my free copies of Volleyball Monthly.” My sophomore year, when Terry Malterre came back from the national team, there were several teammates

As a high school student, I had played for two years

who had to change positions and were not happy about

in club tournaments against many college players from

it. Once again I was challenged to either allow myself to

UCLA, including Lindy Vivas and Terry Condon. When

be “quietly bullied” or to step up and not take it. Well . . .

(UCLA coach) Andy Banachowski came to watch me play,

I stepped up and decided “not to take it anymore,” and

I was awful. Initially UCLA claimed that they only had a

ended up being great friends with those who challenged

half scholarship available to offer me.

me the most.

I was heartbroken but told UCLA that since other

The 1979 team was a pretty eclectic group of

schools were offering me full scholarships, there was

volleyball players. In addition to the core from 1978, there

no way I could accept a half scholarship and make my

were suddenly seven seniors. Equitable playing time

parents pay.

became a HUGE deal!

Two days later UCLA called and

When we went to Utah to play,

said that they had a full scholarship. I

we lost to them both nights. The main

had a talk with my high school coach,

memory I have of that trip was sitting

Linda (Cookie) Dawson, and realized

in a hotel room in Logan, Utah, after

that I really wanted to go to Hawai‘i

the match during a team meeting that

because from the start Dave was honest

went on for over two hours and was

and really seemed to want me to be part

essentially a player bitch session. I

of his team.

remember thinking, wow this is getting

I had also seen the team play and loved how feisty they were. I also was excited about the opportunity to play

pretty ugly, we better win this whole thing. You

know,

winning

with Roxanne Elias. Dave had Donnis

everything! —interviews

Thompson contact me to let me know

author and Ann Miller, 2014

that the nursing program dean would

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11

MEMORABLE MATCHES

I’ve always thought our regional match at Nebraska in 2002 was one of the greatest we have ever played, and we have forty years of great matches. It was a pretty typical scenario, where the home team had all the pressure. Nebraska was expected to go to the final four, but once we started to play well, you could just feel the pressure grow on Nebraska. Every time we made a great play, the crowd would go silent. Our momentum kept building, and they just folded. The venue itself was a terrific place to play. They’ve got great fans in Nebraska, and our players loved being in that atmosphere. The fans are right on top of you at the Coliseum, and when you’re about to serve you’ve got to separate people in the first row. We might have had fifty people in a crowd of four thousand—probably twenty-five from my wife, Mary’s, family. Usually you don’t really want to go someplace like that where they play so tough at home, but you can’t dwell on that type of thing when the sixty-four-team NCAA tournament is announced. You just go wherever you’re told, even if you are ranked second in the country, get the number six seed from the NCAA, and are sent to the home of the second-seeded team. That win over Nebraska got us to the final four in New Orleans, basically a home game for Kim Willoughby, which made us all happy. Nebraska’s setter was Greichaly Cepero. She had killed us the year before and was national player of the year in 2000. They also had two other All-Americans, Amber Holmquist and Laura Pilakowski. But they were never really in the match. Hedder Ilustre made all kinds of unbelievable defensive plays for us, and that gets discouraging for the other team, especially a team used to terminating like Nebraska. We had the terminators that night. Kim and Lily Kahumoku pretty much had their way with Nebraska.

129

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SHOJI

That was one of the sweetest wins we’ve ever had. It seemed like everyone played well. We were tenacious and controlled most of the match, closing it with a 30–21 blowout in the fourth. Lily and Kim had twenty-five kills apiece, and Hedder and Melissa Villaroman combined for thirty digs. “We opened the match giving Nohea Tano five of the first seven sets,” recalled Kari Anderson, my assistant back then. I don’t know if that was Dave’s idea or our setter’s, but we started exactly how you hope your team will come out—fearless and putting the pressure on. Setting Nohea was one of the most unpredictable things and Dave didn’t scream and shout, “Why Nohea, you should be setting Lily!” It was good of him not to freak, and Nohea went kill-kill-kill. It opened up Lily on the other side and it kept going like that all night—they were completely off guard. —Kari Anderson Ambrozich (Wahine volleyball, 1991–1994), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014 The 2009 regional at Stanford was also huge for us, beating two Big Ten teams to get to our first final four since 2003. Brittany Hewitt had a bunch of blocks and Stephanie Ferrell and Amber Kaufman complemented Aneli Cubi-Otineru and Kanani Danielson perfectly offensively in wins over Illinois and Michigan. I give my former assistant, Mike Sealy, a lot of credit for coming up with the game plans. He studied a lot of film and had their tendencies down. He really tweaked our defense in both matches. Michigan had a really good setter—she was really flashy—and Mike told our block what she would do and what she liked to do in certain situations in a match. She was not a factor, it turned out. We won our last nine on the road to get to the final four in Tampa, where we played Penn State in the semis. Penn State had won its last hundred matches, but we took the first game. I didn’t like our chances, but we just hung around in game one and stole it. I thought maybe that might affect their confidence, but once they started getting on a roll, they were too physical for us. The two wins against USC, in the 2008 and 2009 NCAA subregionals at USC, also rank up there with our greatest matches. When you beat a Pac-12 team at its home, it’s a really good win for anybody. We were ranked sixth and USC twelfth the first year, and we beat them easily in the second round with Amber hitting .714 and Jamie Houston and Kanani Danielson effective all over the court. After the initial shock of drawing them the next year, we figured we could do it again, so we were confident going in. Alex Jupiter was their best player, but she was just too young and couldn’t handle the load in a really big match—like she did her senior year (2011) when they beat us in Hawai‘i.

ANELI CUBI-OTINERU Wahine volleyball, 2007–2009

It felt like every year we were playing USC the first week

might have been the top blocking team in the country

of the NCAA tournament—at USC. It happened in 2008

and one of our starting middles couldn’t play.

and we clobbered them. Dave called it a “monumental

We lost the first game when Amber went out, but we

win.” In 2009, the NCAA brought us back to Los Angeles,

won the second one by a lot (25–10), with Lex (Forsyth)

and I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, we’re playing

in, and they never recovered. The next night, Amber was

USC again?

back, and we swept Michigan to get back to the final four

We had beaten them the past two or three years,

for the first time in six years.

so I knew they had more inspiration to beat us in 2009.

For me personally, with my background, what Dave

That game, I just remember it being really long. My

did before I even played a game at UH was huge. My first

knee started to give out and my body was so sore. I was

double-day practice . . . at the end of the day each player

praying at the end. It was not just physically demanding

has a coach’s meeting, just you with all the coaches. It’s

but more mentally and emotionally draining.

about where they see you, how you are doing, what you

The next week we went to Stanford for the regional

need to improve, which areas are good.

and I felt more at ease, the team felt more at ease. It’s

I remember Dave said, “I’m not worried about the

like, we got USC out of the way. We were confident

volleyball part, I know you can do well at that part. I’m

enough because we beat USC in four and they had the

worried about your education, taking care of business.”

momentum.

He was so sincere, concerned about your well-being and

We had a very challenging regional, with Illinois, Michigan, and Stanford, but what made us stronger was

taking care of school because in the end your education is what will get you ahead.

our chemistry and bond. Everybody knew each other’s

Some coaches don’t care, they just want to make

weaknesses and trusted each other. At times we had our

sure you graduate because they don’t want to lose their

little arguments or disagreements, but

scholarship. For Dave, it’s different.

that was pushed to the side. We had a

He not only cares about the volleyball

goal we all wanted to accomplish. The first night, against Illinois,

aspect,

but

also

your

well-being.

—interview with Ann Miller, April 2014

Amber (Kaufman) pulled an abdominal muscle. These girls were huge—Illinois

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132

SHOJI

We were ranked third nationally the second year at USC, and the match had a lot more drama. We were up in game four and should have closed it out, but Amber had a really bad streak of plays, and they caught up. We actually won it, 27–25, on a freak, lucky play. Hewitt went up with the wrong person on the block and was coming down and they hit it right into her hands. She blocked it back to win the match. It is still pretty vivid in my mind. I don’t think we would’ve won game five if it had gone that far—we were just trying to survive at that point—and two weeks later we were in the final four. The last two points in game four—it’s just about who makes a play and we simply made the plays. There’s nothing tactical at that point. We know what they’re doing, they know what we’re doing. You’ve got to make a play, and we made three at the end and dug a ton of balls behind Liz Ka‘aihue. USC didn’t even hit .100. We went to Texas twice in the postseason, 1983 and 2005. The first time we ended up playing Kentucky in the regional final on the way to our second straight championship. The second time we got Texas, and it was pretty sweet. We beat them easily after getting blasted in the first game. Texas shared the number seven national ranking with us that year, but somehow the NCAA had us playing each other in the second round in Austin, where about fifteen hundred fans showed up. Jamie Houston was a freshman and Sarah Mason had transferred in that year, and those two shredded the block of the country’s tallest team, with a bunch of help from setter Kanoe Kamana‘o. The win over Texas to open the 2013 season also meant a lot. They were the defending national champions and returned just about everybody. But I thought we had a chance because their ball control was not very good. We beat them in four in front of 9,800 at our place for our first win over a top-ranked team since 2000. In 1998 we were “just” playing for the WAC championship, not a national title, but the three-hour, thirty-eight-minute match against Brigham Young that year is unforgettable. It was the longest match in NCAA history, and there were so many plays where we could have lost in game four or game five. We also served for the match six times in both those games. Two years earlier, we had lost to BYU in the WAC championship, then beat them two weeks later to go to the final four. We lost to BYU again in the 1997 WAC championship. In ’98, we were up 2–0 but knew that nothing about this would be easy. The final score turned out to be 15–12, 21–19, 13–15, 16–18, 24–22. The first set was the only one where the losing team didn’t serve for the game. I wouldn’t have been upset if we had lost, it was a classic match. No one really deserved to lose

MEMORABLE MATCHES

133

that match. I remember Nikki Hubbert, on one of their match points, set a ball to the middle. It got blocked and she went flat out parallel to the floor and brought it up. We just poked it over and got the side-out. It was a really great play by her, but we were fortunate to be able to poke it down for a side-out. There were dozens of huge plays in that match. Veronica Lima was cramping during time-outs. She couldn’t even celebrate at the end, and Leah Karratti, who got the final kill off a blocker seven inches taller, was also cramping. What I remember most was our boys and nephews—Kawika was eleven, Erik was nine, and their cousins were about the same age—switching sides with the team. There were some other young boys, sons of some of the BYU fans, and they were switching, too. I remember them getting into a verbal battle to see who could yell louder. We’ve had bigger matches but nothing like that—621 swings between the teams. We had five hitters get more than fifteen kills. The girls just never quit, on either side. When we finally got out of the arena, more than an hour after the match, about a hundred fans were waiting for us in the hallway at the MGM Grand. The people who watched that match will never forget it. The people who watched on TV might. Apparently there was a hockey game in Colorado that night that was supposed be on TV, and the station was getting calls—why is that volleyball game still on? Our production guys from Hawai‘i were doing the broadcast, but it must have been on the Rocky Mountain network or something for the WAC, and I think they finally took it off and showed the hockey game—they preempted the end of it to go to hockey. Think that would have happened in Hawai‘i? Early on, our rivals seemed to be UCLA, USC, and Utah State, then Pacific in the ’80s. Then it was definitely Long Beach State, which ended our season five times from 1989 to ’95. We broke that skid in 2000 at a home regional, taking the fifth game 15–6. We sold that match out early but couldn’t announce it until right before the game because of TV coverage. Long Beach State’s coach, Brian Gimmillaro, kept his team in the Stan Sheriff Center hours after that match ended. I have no idea what they were doing. I really don’t like to dwell on losses with the team after a match, especially one that ends the season. I don’t know what to say. You’re either praising them or challenging them. They are not going to play again for a long time—some are never going to play again. But for us that was another pretty sweet win, and we ended up at the final four in Virginia. “In my brain Long Beach was always our number-one rival,” says Kari Anderson, who played against the 49ers in the ’90s and helped me coach against them later. I had a lot of matches against them as a coach and player and as a coach it got better.

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SHOJI In 2000, we had that whole controversy about Jessica Sudduth’s hand—it was wild. At their place earlier in the season, Jessica had gone to shake hands, and one of the girls grabbed her hand really hard and hurt her. Jessica thought it was deliberate and she had to tape it up the rest of the season. The fans heard about it and they were irate. It was like the whole island came out to boo Gimmillaro. They actually booed the players, and they never do that in Hawai‘i. I swear Gimmillaro said they would never come back. —Kari Anderson Ambrozich (Wahine volleyball, 1991–1994), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014

Six years later we were headed to Long Beach State for a subregional. We swept Oregon the first night—Kari Gregory had fourteen blocks—and then we beat Long Beach at its Pyramid for the first time. It felt like old times. I didn’t have the heart before the match to tell my team we had never beaten Long Beach in this building—or much in the NCAAs at all. They had owned us over the years. This one was especially sweet because Kanoe Kamana‘o, Sarah Mason, and Cayley Thurlby were seniors and we were scheduled to host the next week’s regional. I didn’t want the team thinking about that while it was in Long Beach. We couldn’t put that kind of pressure on the team. We play for each other first. How that impacts the university and state comes next. Basically, beating Long Beach State was for us, and after we won we got to share it with everybody else. We upset USC the next week—scoring eleven in a row in the fifth game—at a home regional, with Houston going for thirty-five kills, Mason getting her first twenty (kills and digs), and Juliana Sanders collecting fourteen blocks. There were “only” seven thousand that night, but I have rarely heard the Stan Sheriff that loud. Pacific won the national title in 1985 and ’86, ending our season both years. We were probably the two best teams in the country when we played in the Northwest Regional at Klum in 1987. Both teams had four seniors, and this time we won. Klum nearly fell that night the fans were so excited. The Pacific losses were a little different from the Long Beach losses in the sense that we couldn’t beat Pacific in 1985 and ’86 because of one player—Elaina Oden. She was flat out the best player in college volleyball. She did just about everything. She was the main reason we couldn’t beat them those years. We were being dominated by Pacific, and it was very hard to see how we were going to get out of that. There was not as much of a gap with Long Beach. The Long Beach losses were all different situations, different players that hurt you, but they always seemed to make the plays to beat us, and that was frustrating.

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In the 1989 regional at Stockton—Teee’s final match—we were ahead in the fifth and lost. Long Beach ended up winning the final four at the Blaisdell. It was the first time we had hosted the final four, which made our loss even more devastating. I had complained to the NCAA about the court dimensions in that regional at Pacific. On one side, you could go all the way back to the wall and serve, but the other end line was shorter because they had a band there. We were up at the side change in the fifth, 8–5, but they had a server, Antoinette White, who started bombing serves from the wall, and we couldn’t handle them and lost. We lost to them the next year at the Blaisdell, then again in Stockton in 1991. The score that year was 15–11 in the fifth. It was the first year of an experimental rule using rally scoring in the fifth game. With regular scoring, we would have trailed 5–1. We had lots of other tough losses—Texas A&M in 1999, when we hosted the final four, and Michigan State come to mind. We were up 2–0 against Michigan State, coached by Chuck Erbe, who had moved over from USC. That was the other hard thing to take, we’d been in so many battles. To have him on the winning side was hard. That was also a year when coaches were allowed to scout the other team’s practice. I remember Chuck sitting in the front row at our practice. That was something that really bothered me. You just didn’t do that. Chuck was a coach who wanted to get every advantage. The next year they banned coaches from watching other teams practice during or for the NCAA tournament. When that match was over, there was dead silence in our arena, and then you heard some sniffles. Then the fans stood up to cheer our team. I thought the fans would be real upset, but obviously that wasn’t the mood. Hawai‘i volleyball had grown so big it was overwhelming to me. Nobody’s seen that kind of support—ever. After, everybody was just so depressed, so down about it. The cleanup crew came by and was saying they were sad for us. That’s how it is here. It is the best place to be a coach and a player. At the final four, I never felt a burden. You’re there, everybody is supportive—I never felt the pressure to have to win. Regionals have pressure because you have another step. “The feeling of the Michigan State game I’ve tried to erase forever. It’s caused I don’t know how many nightmares,” Angelica Ljungquist said. But I will tell you, as devastating as that loss was, what sticks most in my head is after the game. There was total devastation—we had towels over our heads, all just bawling because we couldn’t lose that year. We were so strong as a team. We were sitting there and, I’ll never forget this moment, the whole arena was in shock and all of a sudden our crowd, on one side, starting saying “Rain,” and then the other side

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SHOJI started saying “Bows—Rain-Bows, Rain-Bows,” louder and louder. I still get chills thinking about it. I remember thinking, these people are awesome. In our darkest hour, and they are just as disappointed—we came out and we were pretty sure we were going to the final four—and as disappointed as they were they just showed us love and support. That was pretty awesome. That doesn’t happen anywhere else. It started really low and got louder, and that was pretty powerful actually. It was a moment I will never forget. —Angelica Ljungquist (Wahine volleyball, 1993–1996), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014

Texas A&M just played unbelievable in 1999—digging balls off their shoulders—and everything seemed to go their way. We’d block a ball and it would go off somebody’s head and drop on our side for a point. Stuff like that was going on the whole match. I wouldn’t call it lucky, but it just seemed like everything went against us. It wasn’t like that against Michigan State. Michigan State was a better team that night. Early in my career, the losses didn’t stay with me, not like they do now. The old AIAW postseason format was kind of a festival rather than a national championship. You started with twenty teams, played a lot of matches, had pool play, and if you won or came in second, you got reranked for the final round. Losses started to affect me more in the late ’70s and early ’80s. When the NCAA took it over, it seemed to be more professional, more legitimate, and there were more good teams. The game started to change to more of a national game than a West Coast game. In 1975, we played eight matches in the national championship, pool play was two out of three, and you played two or three matches a day. Just about every team in the country went. We reached the semifinals every year, losing to UCLA in ’75 and ’76, USC in ’77, and UCLA again before we won the ’79 title. In 1980 we probably got as far as we could. I knew we were just too young to play well right away, so it didn’t bother me when we were losing early in the season. You never want to lose, you never like to lose, but you understand why you lose, so you just try to get better. I saw the potential that season and we just kept going at it in practice and trying to improve. The 1981 loss to USC was a hard one to take. We were ranked number one the whole year. I think that was the first time I really felt devastated after a loss. There have been a lot of truly devastating losses. It’s the way it happens, the situation. Sometimes you’re up and can’t close the deal. The Washington match in the 2012 NCAA tournament was one of the hardest to take. We had a swing to win, and that would have been huge if we’d beaten Washington at its gym.

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I felt for our players because they earned a seed, they earned a home-court advantage that year. I thought Washington and Hawai‘i should have played in the regional, not the second round. If the NCAA wanted to tell us we’re not good enough, which is essentially what they told us when we weren’t seeded in the top sixteen, that’s wrong. To tell my team they weren’t good enough to be in the top sixteen that year was absurd. I thought it was tragic. From 2004 until that match at Seattle, the NCAA made us travel the first week of the postseason seven times. Four of those years, we beat the host team. Losses are harder on the players. Coaches always have another year, players sometimes don’t, so you feel bad for them. So much hard work and dedication go into it. Now it’s pretty much twelve months of the year. For their four years they are doing just volleyball and class, so it’s hard to end a career on a bad loss. When you are close to winning a championship, that’s when it hurts the most. When we lost the 1988 national championship final to Texas, Mick Haley was their coach, so that was hard to take. I really felt we had the better team, but we just couldn’t get a break in that match, and Texas had four seniors and played really well. Mick basically played the defense he plays to this day. Their block gives hitters the line, but they put two diggers near the line. We just kept banging it, and they kept digging it. We probably should have tried to attack them somewhere else, but when you have five feet of line to hit, you should be able to put it down. We just couldn’t on a consistent basis. Our bad loss at Utah State during the 1979 season set a precedent. We played so poorly and lost so badly that we had to regroup or revamp if we were going to be in the picture anymore. That was late October, so middle of the season, and I called a team meeting in the hotel. When you lose that badly, then things can go really bad fast if you don’t regroup. We had to do something to shake it up. I’ve felt like having another one of those meetings a lot, but I never have. Every team is different, and I don’t like meetings. I think some coaches have way too many meetings. I don’t think they are valid all the time—I’m more effective talking to individuals. Everybody at a meeting doesn’t have to hear about someone else. They need to worry about themselves in a lot of cases, and it is unimportant to half the people there. If I’m upset about certain parts of our game and I’m on a particular player, the other players are saying, “So what, it’s not my problem.” If someone causes you to have a problem, then it’s probably better to meet with that person. I ask players to help all the time. Sometimes it’s the captain, but I think captains are really overrated—really overrated. It’s almost ceremonial to name

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somebody a captain. A captain does not have a whole lot of effect on other players. But you do ask players to try and rein somebody in or something like that. Some kids are better at it than others. Players help coaches. Peer pressure is perhaps more effective.

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We have a pretty remarkable conference record, especially from our time in the WAC. The memorable losses we had at New Mexico State and to Utah State in the WAC tournament I attribute to the law of averages. The one at New Mexico State, which ended our NCAA-record 132-match conference winning streak, was a little different. It was played at a high school gym—and you talk about a hostile crowd, it was a hostile crowd. They were pretty good and we were okay; they were probably pretty equal with us. Mike Jordan is a good coach, so that one we got a little rattled and didn’t play well and they rode some momentum. That one wasn’t really hard to understand. The Utah State loss in 2010 was different. Basically, we just expected to win and didn’t take them seriously. You try to prepare, study the same film, do the same pregame routine, but if the players don’t believe that they’re going to be threatened, then you have a problem. You can’t just shift in the middle of the match. They started to play well, they blocked us—it was hard to just flip a switch and turn it on. I remember telling the Utah State coach congratulations, you really played well and you really upset a lot of the bubble teams. They got the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, and we were going to qualify whether we won or lost. I’ve always been more analytical after a loss. You look for a reason that you lose. If it’s something that is a trend, you have to make the trend stop or try another way. There are always reasons you lose, so if you can get a handle on the things that are hurting you, you should be better the next time out. When you win you get . . . I wouldn’t say complacent, but there’s no reason to change—not always a bad problem to have.

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Contrary to a lot of opinion, we spend very little. The volleyball program has a budget along the same line as golf, tennis, track and field at UH and way less than women’s basketball. Let me count the ways! No money is spent on uniforms, shoes, practice gear, sweats. We are completely sponsored by Asics for all gear that we wear. We’ve had a great relationship with Asics. They do a lot of special things for us. They design uniforms for us, shoes, they design color schemes that are just for the University of Hawai‘i. In 1982, we were sponsored by Nike, and we didn’t get so much as a letter from them after we won the national championship. They didn’t really care about us, so we switched to Asics in 1983. I think the perception in our department is that we get anything we want in terms of budget, and that’s definitely not true. Maybe our players have more gear than anybody else, but it’s nothing we buy, not anything out of our operational budget. We get the same per diem as the other teams, have to follow the same guidelines for cars and hotels, and stay at very average places. We don’t do anything extravagantly. We spend no money on balls, nets, antennas, net standards, scoreboards—all sponsored, mainly by Spalding. That was basically a handshake deal twenty years ago. They were looking to promote their new volleyball and asked if I played golf. They said if I did, they could give me golf equipment but no cash to play their ball, and we’d have to pay for the volleyballs at cost. We fly on red-eyes to save on hotel nights and arrive the day before a game, nap when we arrive, practice later that evening, have a good meal (whatever per diem allows), go to sleep, wake up on game day, then play. We hardly ever play nonconference matches on the road. We prefer to stay home and earn money through attendance. We don’t spend a lot of money going to play on the road. This is a tremendous

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positive, but there are negatives. The positive is the income it brings by us not having to leave the island to go play matches. Negatives might be that we don’t get experience on the road before the conference starts, so you never know how you will play on the road until the first conference road match. If you play good teams in nonconference road games, then it helps your power rating, but it wouldn’t help us to go play weaker teams. It’s been our philosophy to stay home and bring good teams here. We certainly travel enough during the season for conference, so it’s not like we don’t have enough games on the road. We always have eight matches on the road for conference. That takes a toll on the players to go out and come back, go out and come back, so we’ve just chosen to stay home during the preseason. Plus it helps with the bottom line for the university. There are people who criticize our record because we are home all the time in the preseason. They devalue our home record, the fact that we do stay home and aren’t tested on the road, but those people really don’t matter to me. What matters is the special situation that we are in—the distance we have to travel. A bunch of it is bottom-line oriented. I feel obligated to make as much money as we can for the department. Back before the arena was built I don’t think it was on the radar as far as how much income we were making—it was minimal. We weren’t trying to make money at that point. Now, we need to have as many home games as we can to maximize income. We play twenty home matches. That relates to income for the department. Every coach is different, but the difference between staying home and going on a road trip is tens of thousands of dollars, so I think staying home should be something all our coaches consider, if they can. The other part of it is that we’ve been able to get teams here for way less than basketball and baseball pays out in guarantees, because teams want to come here. People want their volleyball teams to get the experience of coming to Hawai‘i and seeing our team and unique atmosphere. If you look at our guarantee output, it’s way less than a lot of UH teams spend to get teams here. Our average guarantee for a visiting team is $4,000 to 6,000. At our Hawaiian Air tournament we get some airline tickets, and that helps tremendously because that’s no money expended. It’s the same way with hotels. We’re finding hotel trade out is real valuable because hotel prices are so high now. Staying home also helps the students, especially early in the semester, because they get a good solid foundation in their classes. If we were gone every other week early in the semester, it would jeopardize their chances to get good grades. We don’t travel until October, so pretty much you’ve established your academic success already—or not! The coaches’ combined salaries are middle of the road, even though mine is pretty high nationally now ($179,000), but still not comparable to UH football or basketball. I’ve come a long way from my $1,200 part-time salary.

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We give twelve scholarships, like everyone else can nationally. Several are endowed and don’t cost the department anything. We have a healthy foundation account, which helps us fund many, many expenditures the department doesn’t have to pay for, like professional development, extra recruiting, pre- and postgame meals, sending players to USA competitions, locker room improvements, and summer school tuition. And, we have amazing fans, who actually pay good money for season tickets and individual game tickets. Our season-ticket package price is, without a doubt, the highest in the country. It costs $175, plus a $120 premium on the lower level (end zones are a $100 premium) and $135 upper level, with seniors $110. Single-match lower-bowl tickets are $17 and upstairs is $12. Nowhere in the country are prices this high. Penn State, the national champion, charged $12 for a two-day all-session ticket to last year’s NCAA subregional, and regular-season matches are $5. Let’s do the math. Really round figures, we usually make about $800,000 on season-ticket income, sometimes $200,000 on walk-up income, roughly $1 million in gross income. Our operating budget is around $600,000, so I estimate about $400,000 profit annually. This is a good model to use for a lot of sports, but the department either won’t or can’t implement it due to the wants of individual programs. What is unique about our program making money is simply a lot of people paying good money for every game. I never gave it much thought until the media brought this up a few years ago—the fact we actually made money for the department from the time we moved into the arena full-time (1995). I guess I didn’t think about it because football, basketball, men’s volleyball, and baseball made money, too. Nebraska has had a great fan base, selling out its four-thousand-seat arena every year until it moved into a larger arena in 2013 and had $2 million in ticket revenue, including five skyboxes. However, its budget is more than twice as much as ours—the team charters a plane to every road game, for instance—and 2013 was the first year it made a profit. No other school team makes money for their department, although the sport is making progress. The Big Ten has good crowds. Texas, Wichita State, Washington, Missouri, Colorado State, and Northern Iowa get good crowds, but again, most of those teams have budgets much larger than ours. In a 2009 NCAA study, Texas’ budget was four times ours. People ask me why it works here. It’s pretty simple. You gotta be good and people gotta love the sport. It helps to be the only game in town, so to speak—UCLA and USC never draw well in Los Angeles. As my daughter, Cobey, sees it, The lack of pro sports and other big-ticket entertainment items in Hawai‘i leaves a big void to be filled,” and why not fill that with a really good, successful, athletic,

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competitive, and fun sport, played by girls who are your neighbors, cousins, and friends? Wahine volleyball is so much fun to watch, and the people of Hawai‘i really feel like it is their team. The players, the coaches, the program have become such a part of Hawai‘i because they are so relatable, accessible, and successful that Hawai‘i continues to fall in love with them year after year. The environment around the program is very family-like, and that is such a reflection of the culture of Hawai‘i you can’t help but love watching them play and wanting to be a part of it. This has been passed down through the generations and continues today. —Cobey Shoji Hutzler (daughter), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014 I wouldn’t change anything in the past, but we really need to nurture future fans and current fans by giving people a great experience at the games. This is the charge of the administration. We need friendly ticket staff, ticket takers, and ushers, clean bathrooms, crowd involvement, good promotions. We need to get a younger fan base to replace the old-timers! A big part of what makes the game different in Hawai‘i is the exposure we get through print and TV. Everyone in town knows Wahine volleyball. We win and we’re fun to watch, and we have local players to boot. I have many, many Klum Gym memories from the beginning of our program. It was a glorified high school gym and not even a really nice high school gym. Its “capacity” is eighteen hundred, but we had a lot of two-thousand-plus crowds there with people all over the floor. Once the fire marshal came with his crew, and we thought they were going to make us stop playing, but they just wanted to watch the game. There is no air-conditioning other than the trade winds coming through the windows and doors. In August and September it could get really humid, especially if there was no wind blowing. If there was no wind and it was humid, the termites would swarm the lights. We used to have practice after men’s basketball was done when we played at Klum. They went from 3 to 5:30 p.m. and we were 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. but had to share the gym with women’s basketball. Men’s basketball would invariably go past its time, and we would have to beat on doors to let them know we were there. On the other side of the time slot, intramurals started at 7:45 p.m., and we had to be done at 7:30. It was quite a circus. In the early days, I would be refereeing volleyball or basketball games from 7:45 to midnight for intramurals in Klum Gym. On game nights, my staff and I were in charge of game management stuff. We’d set up tables

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for admission, for media, for teams. That meant shutting down recreational play for students, not making me a popular guy. Klum had some great attributes. Fans were really close to the court, the players, and coaches. You could hear everything that was said on the court. The heat was legendary. Good or bad, I don’t know. Everyone was saturated with sweat after a match—fans, players, and staff. Mainland teams often wilted. Once there was a thermometer courtside, and it hit 114 degrees. Klum was a UH jewel at one time. I went to many basketball games there when I was a kid. But by 1976, it was old and dilapidated. The bleachers were hard to push out and back, there was gymnastic equipment and wrestling mats around the perimeter, the scoreboards were old and unreliable, the lights were dim. There was nothing first-class about it, except the entertainment! We played Pacific one night when it rained. The roof leaked, but it only leaked on their side even though we switched after every game. I remember John Dunning, Pacific’s coach, joking, “I don’t know how that works, but I think Hawai‘i knows.” It seemed like it only leaked right in front of John, and it leaked right where the hitter would take an approach, so we had to wipe up after every play. Then, when we switched sides, it would seem to stop. Then we’d switch again, and it would start leaking again. It just went like that, and I could see John doing a slow burn during the whole match. Pacific has more than its share of Klum stories. They were on one of the last planes to land before Hurricane Iwa, just as Oahu’s power went out in November of 1982. Their hotel was flooded, so the players hiked fourteen flights to their rooms. Our first match with them was canceled and the second one postponed because of rolling blackouts. We finally played three days later, in morning light, and beat the top-ranked team in the country in sixty-nine minutes. That match was more important for Pacific to play because they were trying to better themselves in terms of seeding because of their schedule. They really wanted to play the match and have a chance to beat us and improve their position for the NCAA playoffs. I remember telling Terry Liskevych, who started their program and was the coach then, that this is not something we’re trying to dodge. This is Mother Nature, and we don’t have much control over the situation. When we beat them in the 1987 regional final—after losing to them the previous two years—that might have been the greatest postgame celebration Klum ever saw. Even during the introductions, the crowd was so loud I remember Teee Williams just laughing when she was announced. It was ridiculously loud. There was also the five-set match against Utah State in ’79, where the fans sitting—and standing—on the floor were practically touching the players. Lee Ann (Pestana) Satele, explained,

MAHINA ELENEKI HUGO Wahine volleyball, 1984–1987

My best memories of the Klum Gym “sweatbox” are

helped him by working hard, being coachable, and doing

the fans being up close and personal. Never mind that

what was best for the team. That is all he asked.

the fire marshal had to look the other way due to the

The recognition we got—and still get—is just crazy!

fact that Klum was about three hundred people over

I absolutely love and admire the people of Hawai‘i for

capacity. I also remember chasing after a shanked ball

their support and loyalty to the program. I still have

and running into the bleachers because they were so

people approach me or my parents and siblings when

close. It was awesome!

they recognize the last name. I received things like

The noise was a good factor and the Bow-Zos were

flowers, jewelry, CDs with homemade songs about me,

at all our games dressed in costumes, and who could

prisoners calling Dave to ask about me—you name it, it

forget Aunty Mary—a crowd favorite? My “bestest”

happened! —interview with Ann Miller, April 2014

memory in Klum was beating Pacific my senior year to go to the final four! I’ve been fortunate to have played in the Stan Sheriff Center for a few alumnae matches, and the feel is still very good. There is nothing like being at Rainbow Wahine volleyball in person. It is still electrifying! Dave cares, he wants to win, he pays acute attention to detail, and he represents the state well. The team, Dave, and the history of the program continue to inspire our youth. This in return has young girls out playing club ball, beach ball, and so on, to follow their passion. For others in the community, I think they appreciate the high caliber of competiveness and the spirit of aloha that unites us. I absolutely grew up wanting to be a Rainbow Wahine. Thanks to those who paved the road before me and also paved the way for such a successful program. I was young, dedicated, and had a passion for volleyball. My parents and I would attend UH games, and it was a dream come true. Winning a national title was icing on the cake! Dave provided me with an opportunity to play at a Division I university and really find out what I could do. He utilized me and all the players to our potential. I

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“You step back to serve and they’re looking at your butt. It’s uncomfortable, but you gotta do it.” She brought her daughter to Klum’s final game just so Chanteal could experience it. Chanteal was three years old at the time. About seventeen years later, she would be playing for us. Despite all the problems with Klum, it was home for us, and for the game in some ways. “This is one of the homes of collegiate volleyball,” Long Beach State coach Brian Gimmillaro said. I love it here. I love the people. I love the little electric fan in the corner—it’s the same one that’s been here for nine years and it’s never worked. The fans here are the most loyal, the most knowledgeable anywhere. —Ann Miller, “Goodbye Klum,” Honolulu Advertiser, December 5, 1993 The referees there were mostly my friends from the Outrigger Canoe Club—Randy Shaw, Ralph Smith, Jon Andersen, John Zabriskie. Verneda Thomas was a friend of Donnis. Linesmen were often volleyball people pulled from the stands, including some of my UH men’s players. Klum might have been the ultimate home court. We won fifty-five in a row there, finally losing to Cal Poly in 1989, with Mike Wilton coaching. He would later coach the UH men and his daughter, Jenny, played for us, but even he called watching a game at Klum as a spectator torture. People always tell me, “I was there in the Klum days,” and they still come to games at the Stan Sheriff Center. Definitely our popularity started there—it is where Hawai‘i fell in love with volleyball—but the opening of the Stan Sheriff Center in 1994 took the fan base to another level. The Stan Sheriff ’s best quality is AIR-CONDITIONING! For a big arena, fans are close to the action, too. There’s always some fun stuff going on—the pep band, the aunties, homemade signs, the Bowzooka, the Kiss Cam, garlic fries (good to some), the blimp, the singers of the national anthem and “Hawai‘i Pono‘ı¯,” big beers, Billy V, rubber band man, sellouts, senior nights, NCAA playoff matches, Taraflex playing floor. The main difference from Klum is all those people in the seats! We’ve averaged less than 6,000 a match just once—and barely—since we moved in full-time. Our first full year there was 1995. It was also the year we became the first college volleyball program to make money, and we have made it every year since. The next year we set the NCAA record for attendance, averaging 8,378—a lot of programs don’t draw that in a season. Our ticket revenue was about twice our budget that year. In 2013, we drew 7,591 a match—our second-best average ever. We sold out Klum nine times

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in 1989 and averaged 2,098—about what most teams would draw in a season back then, too, but it was nothing like what we are able to do at the Stan Sheriff Center, which holds more than 10,000. It is part of people’s lives here. No other universities seek us out to ask why we’re so successful. I think they know things are a little unusual here. They know they can’t create the same thing unless they establish winning all the time. People want to come here because it is the best environment in college volleyball. Other coaches and players say it all the time. Especially for teams that won’t go to the postseason, this is like playing in the NCAA tournament—and usually our matches and tournaments are better organized, and more fun. The fans embrace the players like nowhere else and have practically from the start. “There is definitely not any college experience like it, anywhere else in the world. Nothing is even close,” Deitre Collins claims. My first day at San Diego State, some kid said, “Are you Deitre Collins, didn’t you play volleyball?” I was like, “Child, you were not born when I was playing.” They said, “My mom and dad are from Hawai‘i and talked about you.” That doesn’t happen everywhere. It’s amazing. —Ann Miller, “Collins a Force on One of the ‘Best Teams Ever,’ ” Honolulu Advertiser, July 22, 2009 Which all just makes us feel even worse when we lose. My saddest memories at the Stan Sheriff were the postseason losses to Texas A&M, before we hosted the 1999 final four, and Michigan State, which ended our 1995 season at 31–1. We had sold out the final four in 1999—three months before it happened. Some of my best were beating Long Beach State in the 2000 regional and a bunch of other good wins, like Texas, Washington, several UCLA wins, and beating and losing to USC. We’ve had many celebrities at our games, many governors, mayors, and UH presidents throughout the years. It just doesn’t happen other places. Our girls, Lisa Strand once said, are like gods in Hawai‘i. “I have people to this day—and I’m three years removed from the program—who still call me coach,” Kari Ambrozich says. They recognize me, and I’m surprised by that. The other thing is, being in Hawai‘i, when you are part of the program, you feel automatically accepted into the community—it’s like you are given this pass. I don’t know if that’s totally accurate,

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SHOJI but people are very sweet and nice and it sets you on this status. —Kari Anderson Ambrozich (Wahine volleyball, 1991–1994), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014

Where else would folks line up at Sears in front of the TVs just to watch a volleyball match, as they did when we won the 1982 NCAA championship? “There is nowhere else that you would walk around where people would recognize you and what you have accomplished,” adds Robyn Ah Mow-Santos, who played in three Olympics and professionally overseas. It’s mostly all the parents and older viewers like grandpas and grandmas. I think that playing for Hawai‘i is bigger than playing for Team USA. I’d walk around on the mainland and people would say, “Ohh, you played for UH . . . ?” I’d say “Yeah,” and they would say, “What are you doing here?” I’m like, “I play on the USA National Team, we are here for a tournament.” I was overseas, I forget what country, and I’d been on the national team awhile, and someone said to me, “Oh my God, you are Robyn Ah Mow, you used to play on UH’s team!” Some of the girls I was walking with just started laughing because that person was acting like they saw a celebrity! I told my teammates, “See, that’s what happens when you play for University of Hawai‘i. Too bad, you should’ve gone there!” —Robyn Ah Mow-Santos (Wahine volleyball, 1993– 1996), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014 The players just deal with being recognized, and that’s what my family and I do. Whenever I get annoyed, I just remember, where else in America? We accommodate everyone who says something or asks something because, as my good friend says, they might be a season ticket holder or potential one. Really, I’m flattered when I’m recognized, and it has its perks, too. People buy us drinks all the time. We’ve had meals paid for by strangers. Restaurants give us free pupus. Others give us gifts, like a guy gave me a Dodger jersey because he knew I was a fan. Only in Hawai‘i do these things happen to the volleyball team, underlining how popular this sport is in this state. Stuff like this only happens to big-time coaches in big-time sports like football and basketball in college. And it happens here—in volleyball. Unbelievable.

2S\T.`TLUJV\YHNLKHU`IVK`HUKL]LY`IVK`[VSL[SVVZL7OV[VI`9VU1L[[JV\Y[LZ`VMHonolulu Star-Advertiser.

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13

A POINT HERE AND THERE Why one team wins and another loses is often just a matter of a few points. You can say that the team that won had a little more heart or something even more difficult to measure, but to be honest the difference is almost nothing. It’s a point here and there. When you win a Super Bowl or World Series or NCAA championship, that victory can never be taken away from you and you can always look to that big game and hold it in high esteem. But there are some teams that didn’t win that got an unlucky break here or there and the ball just bounces the other team’s way. It has nothing to do with heart—everybody wants to win. That was the case when we lost so many tough games, when it simply could have gone the other way. It wasn’t lack of heart or lack of skill or lack of coaching or effort. The ball just bounces a different way. We could have won a few more championships, but in ’79 and ’82 it could have gone the other way just as easily. We had some really good teams that didn’t win national championships. In 1995, when we lost to Michigan State, that might have been the most talented team we ever had, and we had other teams eliminated before the final four that could have won. Going back to 1988, I think we had the best team in the country and didn’t win because we had a couple bad games. We were capable of winning the whole thing, it was not a matter of not enough talent. But that’s athletics, you just never know. During the Kim and Lily days in the early years of 2000–2010, we had three teams that went to the final four in five years. All those teams were outstanding and all could have won. It was not a matter of talent, it was a matter of execution, and we just didn’t execute well enough to win, or we got outplayed. Stanford’s Logan Tom pretty much beat us by herself one year. But with few exceptions, we had a shot every year. We won fifty-five home matches in a row from 1986 to ’89. All through 1989 and ’90 we were

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really good, and ’91 we were pretty good, but we lost to Long Beach State all those years. Then we fell off a little and in 1992 and ’93 we were very average. We had to reevaluate at that point, and revitalize. We took a long look at a lot of areas of the program and restructured many to try and accomplish what we felt were our goals. We went from being unranked in 1992—the only time in the history of our program—to getting to the national championship final again in 1996. In those years, you couldn’t train as long and hard as you could back in the ’70s. The NCAA puts restrictions on the number of hours you can train, which really hurts the sport but is better for the athlete. We also used to do a lot of conditioning in practice, extra repetitions just to condition. Now conditioning is done for us by the weight-training staff, so girls are in better shape. You don’t have to play your way into shape either; players are already there through rigorous summer training when we start practice. That’s something that has changed over the years. Practices are not as physically demanding. There is more technique and more analysis going on rather than just pound, pound, pound balls at people. The focus is also different. I don’t know if it’s directly related to anything we did differently, but you have to adapt to the players now. The old style of coaching—my way or the highway— doesn’t work anymore. To get the most out of players, you have to understand what makes them want to play hard. Our girls almost always play hard. In 1994, we lost to Long Beach again—in five—so we were good then. We were really good in ’95 as well. In 1996 we went to the NCAA championship final and in ’98 and ’99 we were good with Heather Bown. Then Kim and Lily came. We were pretty good this entire period. Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, the Northwest Regional was usually a replay of our conference season, and we were always knocking each other out of the final four. From 1985 to ’91, the Big West had at least five teams in every NCAA tournament and it sent eight in 1988—all playing each other in the first round. In 1986, four of the top five teams in the country were in our conference. The NCAA still would not send us out of the region. I tried to make people realize how difficult it was to win back then, especially in our region. Everything had to be just right. In the old days, we got to the final four every year, but that was not the case anymore, with any program. There had become so many competitive teams and the talent was so spread out. It was great for the sport. But it was frustrating to play in that Northwest Regional with the teams we’d been playing all year and knock each other out of the playoffs. The region was stacked with great teams. It was always Long Beach State, Pacific, and Cal Poly that were really good during that time as well. It made

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it harder to make a final four. It felt like other teams around the country were getting an easier road to the final four—even an easier road to the regionals. We always talked about the situation, but it wasn’t something I wanted the team to dwell on because that would take away from our preparation. Once you’re resigned to playing these teams, all you can do is go out and work hard and try to beat them. The players were very well aware of the national scene and what was happening around the rest of the country. But we’d only talk about it one time and then we moved on and tried to get ready for the match in our own little final four. That was a lot tougher to deal with than now, when the NCAA rarely allows us to host. It’s still somewhat regionalized now, but it’s a little more fair. We have never actually been denied the ability to host, they just chose not to give us home games. The NCAA says it’s not a financial decision. Who hosts is not supposed to have anything to do with ticket sales or the ability to make money because the tournament is not designed to make money. The NCAA is resigned to a tournament that saves money but is not necessarily going to make any money—and Lord knows Hawai‘i would turn a profit if we were allowed to stay home. We were seeded in the top fifteen from 2004 to 2010 but had to travel every year. The most devoted fans in the game did not get to see a postseason home match, with the exception of 2006— when we hosted a regional—because the NCAA wanted to limit the amount of travel. We flew an average of forty-two thousand miles each of those years. In 2011 the Pac-12—also hurt by regional pairings and the NCAA’s desire to limit travel—got a rule passed to make it mandatory that the sixteen seeded teams have the right to host. The next season we were seeded tenth, hosted a subregional, and made $125,000, drawing twice as many fans as any other site. We also sold out our regional the following week—and drew top-ranked USC the first night. The next year we were ranked eighth nationally, but the NCAA committee seeded us seventeenth, so we had to fly to Seattle and ended up serving for the match against fifth-ranked Washington before going down in five. In the same round, Penn State was sweeping Bowling Green and Florida did the same to Charleston. It’s disappointing when you see East Coast teams getting to skate through subregionals and Hawai‘i gets a draw like we did, but we know it’s going to happen. There’s not much else you can do with the way the system is other than seed sixty-four teams, which isn’t going to happen anytime soon. It’s costly to send teams cross-country just because of a seeding. The 1988 team lost four seniors from our championship team. We had a star and a great supporting cast that year. Teee Williams hit a ton of balls, averaging about six kills a game. We still had Martina Cincerova, and she was a great setter. Our middles were Karrie Trieschman, who would be

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an All-American the next two years, and Anna Vorwerk, who played with the Swedish national team before coming to us for one great season. Freshman Carolyn Taeatafa would only be with us one year, too, but we didn’t know that until after the 1988 season ended with us falling to Texas in the NCAA final. Teee had twenty-eight kills in that loss to Texas, which had its own four seniors that year. The rest of our team got thirty-two kills and we were swept. We couldn’t stop a sophomore named Dagmara Szyszczak, who had thirteen kills and sixteen digs. “Whatever her name is,” I said at the press conference, “she shredded our block. She was the difference.” We had beaten Illinois in the semifinal again and they joined us at our party in the hotel lobby after our loss. In 1995 we finally beat Long Beach—swept them twice—and everybody else until we got to the Mountain Regional final at home against Michigan State. We won the first two games, then lost the match with a team led by Angelica Ljungquist—our latest, and greatest, Swede—and Robyn Ah Mow. Our first year in the Western Athletic Conference was 1996. I think the loss to Michigan State motivated us. BYU beat us in the tournament championship in Las Vegas, and two weeks later we swept them before a sellout crowd at home in the regionals, behind our two All-Americans, along with Cia Goods, Joselyn Robins, Therese Crawford, Chastity Nobriga, and Nalani Yamashita. It was especially exciting in the mid-1990s because Hawai‘i really got behind the team. We had record crowds in 1996 and fans just embraced the team, which had a lot of different flavors to it. We had local players and an international player and a few mainland players. It was an exciting time to be around the program—there was a buzz around town about us. It was exciting to coach that team, and to watch it. Rich Feller, then the Colorado State coach, described us as “a beautiful team to watch.” Two hundred fans traveled with us to Cleveland for our first final four in eight years. We swept Florida to reach the championship. They only lost to us that year—twice. “It was a great year to be 37–0,” said their coach, Mary Wise. “We’ve just got to get rid of Hawai‘i.” But Angelica pulled her Achilles in the semifinal and came down with the flu the day of the final, after she was named national player of the year. The same thing happened in Lily Kahumoku’s final game at the 2003 final four, when she was very sick. Like I said, the ball just doesn’t bounce your way sometimes. Angelica had a temperature of 101 the morning of the final. She was definitely not at her best in that game, and we were swept by Stanford in the final. “It was awful,” Angelica remembers.

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For so many years I had nightmares about waking up the morning of the final. I started crying because I couldn’t sit up in my bed. I remember bawling to my roommate, Kelli Cordray, “Kelli, Kelli, go get a doctor.” It was a real nightmare. —Angelica Ljungquist (Wahine volleyball, 1993–1996), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014 If you go player by player, Stanford probably had more talent than us, with people like Kerri Walsh and Kristin Folkl. You feel bad at the time, but when you realize Kerri is among the best players in the world, you know why we lost and you don’t feel that badly after a while. Angelica and Robyn could not have been more different as individuals, the tall Swede and the small local girl, but they formed a great bond. “Ang was special,” Robyn says. I’m glad to have had the chance to have met her and played with her. She was the same age as us but came across as more mature. Her and I, I’d say, had chemistry. It was like I knew what she was thinking and the other way around. We were there and wanting the same thing day in and day out. My junior and senior year, that chemistry kind of kicked in with the whole group. The 1995 team was a pretty tight team and lots of chemistry . . . everyone was on the same page, I’d say kind of like the team in 2013. Everyone thought we had the potential to go all the way. I don’t know what happened that year. Still trying to figure that one out. The following year, it was kind of the same, just Jenny Wilton and Chastity Nobriga switching places. Still the same core group and still an awesome year. Again, I thought we would go all the way, and I don’t know what happened. I’d say those last two years of my career and these past couple of years here in Hawai‘i (2012 and 2013) were about the same. —Robyn Ah Mow-Santos (Wahine volleyball, 1993–1996), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014 Heather Bown, who played in all three Olympics with Robyn, made us good in 1998 and ’99, with a pretty strong supporting cast, including Veronica Lima, Jessica Sudduth, Heidi Ilustre, and Leah Karratti. We won that historic match—the NCAA’s longest ever—over BYU in the WAC tournament in ’98, then lost to Florida in five in Gainesville in the regional final. The following year, Texas A&M shocked us at home in the NCAA regionals. We finished that season 29–2. Lily came to the program in 1999 and Kim in 2000. We were pretty good the entire time, reached three final fours, but didn’t win. The seniors in 2003 were the winningest class in history.

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We hit .320 in 2002 to lead the country and didn’t come close to losing in the WAC—or anywhere else for the most part. Kim and Lily might have been the best tandem outside hitters we’ve ever had. There was never a weak rotation. Most teams have one or two weak rotations. This team didn’t because we had Kim or Lily available in the front row at all times and both available in the back row as well. How did it compare with our championship teams? It would be hard for the ’87 team, for example, to beat the teams in the Kim and Lily years. We had the best pair of outside hitters we’ve ever had in the program. We were close to winning the championship every year but probably weren’t as balanced as we needed to be to win. I don’t think it’s fair to compare different eras. I’m a baseball and basketball fan, but I don’t think you compare Elgin Baylor and LeBron James, even though Baylor and Jerry West were the dominant players on those Lakers teams. They wouldn’t match up today, but at their time they were great players. I think it’s the same in our sport. No way to compare Tita Ahuna and Kanani Danielson, totally different eras and skill sets. Competition is just deeper, bigger, and stronger now. I think there are fifty really good volleyball teams now, where back in the ’70s there might have been four or five. It’s great for the sport. It’s very athletic now, more physical, played more like the men’s game. On the other hand, players today, I don’t think, are as tough as players were back then. Players in the ’70s could take more punishment, and there wasn’t as much parental interference. Nobody gave you anything then, you had to earn it. Kids nowadays are a little more spoiled, a little more enabled. There’s more drama with playing time. More players bail out of a tough situation now. It’s just a sign of the times. Early in childhood, everybody gets a medal, everybody gets to play in AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization). You’re supposed to be encouraging with everybody and tell them to just have fun. When kids come to a tough situation, they’re not able to deal with it sometimes. The coaching has changed along with it. You’ve got to be able to manage kids like that today. It’s still manageable, but it’s really hard now. You have to cater to boys and girls, and you have to be strong, but you still have to understand who you’re dealing with. I think players in the ’80s, when Title IX was still new . . . anything they ever got was appreciated. If we treated them to a nice postgame meal, they were so happy. But now everybody expects that kind of treatment. I’m sure when we lose, every one of our players feels like they let somebody down. It’s hard to say anything to them. I know how much work they’ve put into it. Don’t get me wrong, kids do work hard today. It’s not like they don’t, but their motivation is different. They still put in a lot of effort. It’s tough.

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Losing is always hard to deal with, but I don’t want my players to think they failed. We have had so many great teams. That’s why people keep coming back to watch us. I think winning is 80 percent of the reason we are so popular. It is just so difficult now to win that last match. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. When Lily took the 2001 season off, I was obviously concerned we wouldn’t be as good. But we went to Washington State for the first two rounds of the NCAA playoffs and we won, then lost to UCLA in the West Regional. We moved Maja Gustin to the outside, had Lauren Duggins and Nohea Tano in the middle. I think it was one of the more fun teams. The pressure was off us, we weren’t expected to do well. Kim went off all season, averaging more than seven kills a game to lead the country. It was great to watch. When Kim, Lily, Duggins, Maja, Tano, Melissa Villaroman, and Karin Lundqvist graduated, we weren’t expecting much the next year, but the 2004 team won its first thirty and climbed to number one in the rankings just before the NCAA tournament. We still got sent to Colorado for the first two rounds, won, and then played Wisconsin in the Green Bay regional. We traveled more than forty thousand miles that year and didn’t even get to the final four. David McClain, our interim president at UH then, wrote NCAA president Myles Brand to ask for a review of procedures for deciding postseason site selections. He told the NCAA that its “decision to direct us to Ft. Collins defies common sense.” We in Hawai‘i have a very biased outlook on the NCAA tournament. Of course everybody thought we were treated unfairly. But the NCAA basically can do what it wants to do and doesn’t have to answer to anybody. Every year someone gets left out of the NCAA basketball tournament. There’s always some so-called injustice. But again, the NCAA doesn’t really care. It puts its faith in its committees, and you never know what goes on behind closed doors, but they always have reasons for what they’re doing. That was the way the ball bounced in 2004. We lost to Wisconsin 31–29, 30–23, 22–30, 28–30, 21–19 in our seventh five-set match of a remarkable season. We served for the match twice and held off four match points before going down. After the match, I told my players I thought this was one of the best volleyball matches I’d ever been involved with. It had every emotion you could ask for from all the players, and they all just put their hearts on the line. I think it was what college athletics are all about. The emotion out there was unbelievable. The 2004 team was the all-time overachiever team of my career. It was a case of not having a star and being very balanced and very unselfish and having a great setter who could isolate people and run an offense and made great set selections, and that was Kanoe Kamana‘o. “It definitely wasn’t the same talentwise as the year before,” Kanoe explains.

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SHOJI Kim and Lily were definitely our hot hitters and go-to players the year before. There was never a doubt on the 2003 team. And heightwise, we had Lauren and Maja and Nohea. We also lost our libero, Melissa Villaroman. But in 2004 it took every little bit of everyone to make up this team. There was no comparison talentwise. We did change our offense, we adjusted to what we had, and we had more quickness. Our speed was better than the 2003 team. —Kanoe Kamana‘o Ka‘aihue (Wahine volleyball, 2003–2006), interview with Ann Miller, April 2014

That was also another case of a team building on wins and just getting more confident, getting better as the season went on, winning against tough teams. At the end we were a really solid ball club. Everybody was on the same page mentally, and we had some tough players. We were not supertalented. Victoria Prince was a five-foot-eleven middle, and Susie Boogaard a big, slow outside hitter, but she could block and had a good arm. Alicia Arnott liked to play fast. Tara Hittle, Juliana Sanders, and Kari Gregory were all freshmen. Teams like that just complement each other. You are pretty balanced at the pins and the opposition doesn’t know who to load up on. The setter just picks off people and is able to isolate the hitters, and Kanoe was an awesome setter. That was our most surprising team, it had to be. Prince had transferred here from Washington State. She married Kevin Federline—Britney Spears’ ex—in 2013 and has constantly been in the tabloids since she left. Melody Eckmier, Nickie Thomas, and Teisa Fotu also played important roles, but we built the team around Kanoe. Players have to be fundamentally sound, you have to work on that part of it—be a good teacher and understand how mechanically you can get players to be at their best. The tactical part is to take players you hope are technically sound now and mold them into a system that’s best for them. You can’t really plug players into your system. My philosophy is you have to take your players and come up with a system. “He is really good at learning to adapt his style based on the type of team he has and his personnel,” explains Kari Anderson, who played for me, then coached with me fourteen years. In 2003, when we had Kim and Lily and the seven seniors, we had a very good team. We knew we didn’t need to do a lot of fancy things, our offense could be pretty simple and conservative and we would win most of our games because physically we outmatched opponents. The following year we lost a lot of people, had a lot of unknowns, and he just said, “We gotta go fast,” and he had a setter who could do it—Kanoe could do it. We

K A N O E K A M A N A‘ O K A‘A I H U E Wahine volleyball, 2003–2006

After we went to the final four in 2003 with Kim and

When I was younger, thinking about going to college,

Lily and all the seniors graduated, it kind of looked as if

I wasn’t thinking about winning a championship, I was

it would be a rebuilding year for our team in 2004. There

thinking about where to go and what the top programs

were really no expectations, but we had enough girls left

were. Once you get to a school, you start finding out if it

who knew what it took, and the amount of work it took,

has won a championship or gone to a final four, if it’s an

to get to a final four.

awesome program and how I can contribute to winning

Everyone put in the hard work we needed. We

a national championship.

looked toward each other. The year before, everybody

There’s probably no better coach I could have chosen

looked to Kim and Lily to carry the team. On this team,

to play for. Dave is an amazing all-around coach—not

there were no specific individuals you could pinpoint

only on the court but off the court. He cares so much

who would dominate for us.

about his players. On the court he has his own style of

We all got along well most of the time. There was not

coaching, and if you were used to one style growing up,

a lot of drama on the team, and that really helped us. When

it might be tough, but once you get that he’s been around

we were on that whole winning streak, it wasn’t expected,

volleyball and coaching so long, you lose all your doubt

but I thought maybe we had a chance to be home for the

and just want to focus on what he has to say.

playoffs because there weren’t a lot of dominating teams.

He was a very inspirational coach for me, being a

But at that time the NCAA kept putting us places. When

setter and having the same background. He doesn’t talk

we found out we were going away, it was not a surprise. It

a lot, but when he does say something, those little bits

would have been awesome to play at home, but it turned

of words mean so much. A lot of times in my freshman

out the other way and we were prepared.

year, Charlie (Wade) did a lot of the talking, and when

We won the first two rounds in the snow at Ft.

Dave did talk, he’d say things like, “Okay, this is how

Collins, Colorado, then headed to Green

we’re going to do it.” Nowadays I

Bay. I remember Cayley Thurlby taking

hear he’s the one running everything.

us to Lambeau Field and taking a team

I think he’s talking a lot more now.

picture. We were focused on everything

—interview with Ann Miller, April

then, even trying to have as much fun

2014

as we could in our last days together.

PSSPHTZ»IYLH[O[HRPUN[HSLU[NH]L[OL9HPUIV^>HOPULHSLNP[PTH[LZOV[H[HJOHTWPVUZOPWHSS[OYLL`LHYZVMOLYLZ[ 9LNPVUHS7OV[VJV\Y[LZ`VMHOPUL»ZZ[\UUPUNZLHZVUOP[[PUNV]LYPUOLYJHYLLY7OV[VI` 1HTT(X\PUVJV\Y[LZ`VM Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

14

COACHES, FRIENDS, AND RIVALS At my first nationals, in Princeton in 1975, a guy came up to me before the tournament. It turned out he was dating one of my players, Mary McGrath. He said he would like to help me, do some scouting and watch the other teams for us. He was from Chicago—Taras Liskevych was the guy’s name. We became friends at that time, and he did help; he knew a lot about volleyball. During our week together he told me he was going to start a college program somewhere and his dream was to win a national championship. In one week we became friends and it’s become a lifetime friendship. “Terry” coached the US women’s national team for twelve years, after he started the program at Pacific in 1976. I told him Hawai‘i would come to Stockton and play his team. He threw a couple dates out to me, and I accepted one. Then I found out it was actually after the national championship. But, being the person I am and the person he was, Hawai‘i went to Stockton on the way home from the national championship in 1977. We played at a junior college because Pacific didn’t have Spanos Center at the time. Along with being a friend, he has been a mentor as well. He really helped me. He never won a national championship, but he came very close. Chris McLachlin, who went to Punahou, played at Stanford while I was in college at Santa Barbara. Stanford didn’t have a varsity program, but they would drive south and play in the Santa Barbara collegiate tournament. I don’t remember him as a player and I didn’t know him at the time, even though we graduated from high school in the same year. We knew of each other, we had a lot of friends in common. When I came back to Hawai‘i to live in the early ’70s, he was here and playing at the Outrigger Canoe Club, and we became close friends.

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Chris was the UH coach between the 1974 and 1975 seasons, but he was just starting his career at Punahou and really couldn’t take over as the head coach at UH. He didn’t have the time and couldn’t travel with the team. His wife, Beth, was on the team then and also training with the national team. I’m pretty sure he and Beth had a lot to do with me being hired. Chris McLachlin could have coached at any level, and has. He’s been with the national program, he was an assistant coach at Stanford when his son and our boys were there. I think he knows more about volleyball than anybody in Hawai‘i. He was a great high school coach, volleyball and basketball, and obviously he knows the game at a high level. His wife was a national team player. He’s been to many, many games at every level. He knows how to handle kids, he is innovative and a great motivator. He is probably the best psychological coach of all our peers, and he’s doing it professionally now, helping people and teams with their mental game. He had a lot of talent at Punahou, but I don’t think anybody else could have done what he did. He won almost every year he coached, in volleyball and basketball. Dennis Berg is another one of my close friends. His daughter Lindsey played with Robyn in the Olympics and Erin, his other daughter, is the head coach at Dartmouth. I met Dennis at UC Santa Barbara, where he was the volleyball coach, and he asked me to come out for the team. He was a really close friend even at the time he was coaching me, and we were more like friends than coach and player. We talked volleyball for hours and hours and we still do. He’s seen a lot of games at every level. Back when I met him, it was a much simpler game, but he was really organized. He knew what he was talking about, he had everybody’s respect. He was the master at things like just filling out a lineup card and putting people next to each other and coming up with the best lineup and getting the most out of it. He married a local girl, Tina, and ended up living in Hawai‘i. Once he moved here, we just hung out with the same people. He coached the Outrigger and I played for him there. Besides those three, one of my closest volleyball coaching friends is Arizona’s Dave Rubio. He has his own style; he is not at the top echelon in the Pac-12, so, like us, he has to take chances on players. He might be the most diligent recruiter in the country. He knows just about every good player. He just can’t always get the best players. He did get one of the best athletically, Kim Glass, and Arizona reached the final four in 2001, so he can develop players, a lot like we have to do. He can take an athlete and develop her and have good teams because of that. I always used to see him at junior tournaments early on, and maybe because he is half Japanese we have had a solid bond there. Reed Sunahara, from Hilo, is another good friend. He’s had a rough time of it lately, but now he’s back into collegiate coaching, so I feel good for him. He’s at Buffalo and he’s two hours

CHRIS MCLACHLIN Coach and broadcaster

I recommended Dave to Donnis Thompson when she

were the first to start televising women’s volleyball,

was looking for a coach in 1975. He was assisting me at

in 1984. Thank Rick Blangiardi at KHNL for that vision,

the time in basketball at Punahou and also coached in

which was a great recruiting tool.

the volleyball program at Punahou. He was a great player

Finally, UH got a jump on most of the programs in

at UCSB, and we were teammates on the Outrigger Open

the country because of the above six reasons, plus add

team, so I knew he was very qualified.

in the lure of “playing in Hawai‘i,” and you have a pretty

The UH program rose to this level based on a

good recipe for success.

combination of many things. First, Donnis saw the

The Wahine’s following is different because Hawai‘i

quality and quantity of the talent pool in Hawai‘i and

has a long history of loving volleyball, from the fire

figured it would be a good sport to go “all in” with.

stations to the plantations to the beach at Waikiki

Second, because volleyball is almost indigenous in many ways in this state, the fan base was “built in.”

to playing on the grass by tying a rope between two coconut trees. With that kind of head start and the

Third, the financial support of Central Y, Nuuanu Y,

arrival of the first national high school player of the year,

and Nick Nickolas of Nick’s Fishmarket, all of whom were

Diane Sebastian, championships were bound to follow.

generous in their support of the Rainbow Wahine in the

It helped that Dave and his assistants recruited and

important off-season.

retained most of Hawai‘i’s best players.

Fourth, Alan Kang was instrumental in coaching the

Dave is a great fundamentals teacher, has always

team as a club team and “keeping it alive” until it was

developed players that no one else recruited. He has

fully sanctioned in 1974. And he did it all for the love of

taught great defense, and his teams have been known

the game—a real hero and pioneer.

for their ability to pass and dig as well as any team in

Fifth, Dave was smart enough to always surround himself

with

great

recruiters

as

assistants, such as Alan Kang, Dave DeGroot,

Charlie

Brande,

the country. He has found ways to win with smallish outsides (like Cheryl Grimm, Mahina Eleneki).

Howard

Above all, his greatest strength

Wallace, Charlie Wade, Mike Sealy,

has been his game management, from

Scott Wong, and Robyn Ah Mow-

selecting the right lineup to subbing

Santos. These assistants were vital

in the right player at the right time

in assembling amazing talent in the

to calling time-outs effectively and

early years and Hawai‘i became a “cool

efficiently, and, as he has grown and

place” to go where you could play in

matured, he has learned to listen to

front of full houses of fans who were

his best critics, who know lots about

knowledgeable and appreciated good

volleyball (Mary, Cobey, Kawika, and

volleyball. Sixth, UH had the first television

Erik)! —interview with Ann Miller, April 2014

contract for all of their sports, and they

*OYPZ4J3HJOSPUW\[PUHNVVK^VYKMVY+H]L:OVQPH[HOPULTH[JOLZ 7OV[VI`*PUK`,SSLU9\ZZLSSJV\Y[LZ`VM Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

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away from his kids—they are why he didn’t want to coach on the West Coast or come back home. I recruited Reed Sunahara because I was the men’s coach when he came out of high school. I remember going to Hilo and having a home visit. I followed his career at UCLA, and we’ve become friends. He’s also good friends with Peter Ehrman, one of my closest friends, and played with him at UCLA. We all kind of learn from each other. They talk about the NFL being a copycat league, but it’s the same in volleyball—what’s working for you and what techniques you are using are closely watched by almost all the college coaches. That’s one thing different about the women’s game as opposed to the men’s game. The women’s game has so many more variables. The coaches have to be a little more innovative, where if you watched a men’s game, you probably couldn’t tell the difference between any of the top-twenty teams as far as what they’re running and how they’re running it, what their players are doing, who is passing, and what formations they are in. It’s almost all the same. In some ways, that’s really good for the national team because most of the guys come out and they are ready to play and don’t have to learn a system. The girls—it’s becoming more like the men’s game, but there are still a lot of things the women’s coaches do that the men’s coaches would never do. That’s kind of why you watch, you ask, you take the best things from everybody. Reed and I would talk about everything. Coming from UCLA, where he had only Al Scates as a role model, he had to change a little. It was very different in the women’s game. I remember talking to him about organization of practices, and he had to learn how to coach women, too. He probably treated them more like men in the beginning, which I don’t think you can do. John Dunning, at Stanford, and Brian Gimmillaro, at Long Beach State, I’ve come to respect over the years because we’re battling all the time. Back in the day, we lost to Long Beach State three years in a row in the regionals, and we’ve beat John a few times in big games and he’s beat us a lot, too. But we all look back and are pretty good with the wins and losses just knowing it was a battle but also fun at the time. Losses are hard to take, but you couldn’t ask for better competition. You wouldn’t want it any other way. If you won all the time, it wouldn’t be worth much. What I respect most about Brian is that he can train volleyball players. He is a total technique coach. They probably do five times as many repetitions as we do in a practice. By the end of somebody’s career at Long Beach, they can perform his techniques to perfection. His techniques are mostly Asian-type things. He could train setters especially: he took very average players and made them into great setters, and they won national championships with various setters. The best thing about John, who took over for Terry at Pacific before going to Stanford, is that

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he always has his team in a position where he takes advantage of his good players. He has great players, but he also always has them in position to score and block and whatever was needed to win. He doesn’t really have a mold, I don’t think. He can put his team on the floor and you know they are going to be very tough to beat. John says that we are actually better as coaches now because there is more balance in our lives. It’s less do or die even though we want to win more than we ever did. I think he’s right. Andy Banachowski was the women’s game’s winningest coach until I passed him in 2013, and all those wins came at UCLA. I thought he was the master at changing things when they didn’t go his way; he was really good at taking his players and trying to get the most out of his talent. He didn’t always have the best talent either. He was really good during a match. I could see him always making adjustments. If he was down, there was always something he would do to try and turn the tide. Brian always plays the same way all the time. He doesn’t change because often he only has six good players. He rarely changes tactics, because that’s the way they practice and they are really good at what they do. Andy and John are more apt to change on the fly—Andy more so. I think Russ Rose had more talent at Penn State than anybody in the last ten years. He is able to recruit really good players from all over the country. His style is, if you’re not doing well, I’ll put someone else in who has just as many accolades as you do and we will win anyway. I don’t think he gets “no” a lot from people he offers scholarships to. Nina Matthies at Pepperdine, Santa Barbara’s Kathy Gregory, and Mary Wise, at Florida, were the top women’s coaches of their day. Nina and Kathy did it, for the most part, with just California girls. They weren’t recruiting nationally because their budgets wouldn’t allow it most of the time. They were more like me and had a similar background. Kathy was probably a better basketball player than volleyball, even though she was considered “queen of the beach.” The first time I saw her was when one of my female friends was playing basketball for UCSB in 1967–1968 and I went and watched her play. They played in the old gym— older than Rob Gym—and they were playing Cal State Los Angeles. There was this player on Cal State who probably scored forty points with a variety of shots—inside, outside, and went ten for ten from the line. I found out her name was Kathy Gregory. Several years later she was winning beach volleyball tournaments up and down the California coast. She started coaching at Santa Barbara about the same time I started at Hawai‘i. She had that all-around sports experience and just happened to gravitate toward coaching volleyball. She was really competitive all the time. She was probably the most competitive woman I’ve ever known. No woman has coached a school to an NCAA championship, and Mary is the only one to make it to the final match. She has good talent at Florida. She used to get every really good player

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in Florida, and they’ve got quite a talent pool there. Then she started doing well recruiting Midwest players. Mary is a people person, high energy, gets her team fired up. She’s pretty good at X’s and O’s, too. I don’t think I learn a lot from watching coaches, but I watch them all, I watch their demeanor on the bench. I’ve coached against Mick Haley so long I know what his idiosyncrasies are. I can tell when he’s upset. I can tell when he has to nurture somebody. I can pretty much read him like a book. Jim McLaughlin at Washington is one who I admire for the way he handles his players. I don’t follow his volleyball principles, because he is doing something very different, but he’s doing something right up there because his players all just live and die by his words. He’s got a way about him that commands a lot of respect from his players. I would love to go watch other teams’ practices, but it’s not as open as football. Football coaches invite other coaches, and they go and watch practices. It’s rarely done in volleyball. Maybe when I’m retired I’ll go watch and get an idea of what they’re actually doing in the gym. I can go twenty-five years knowing somebody but not knowing how they coach in the practice gym. You see them on the recruiting trail, you see them play, but you don’t know what’s going on in the practice gym. I’m sure I’d be surprised at how a lot of coaches run practice. There’s very little volleyball conversation between coaches. A lot of times you go to clinics and get things there, but I think every coach has their own personality and their own way of handling things. I don’t think you can get into somebody’s head like that. I think that’s something you have to develop yourself. You have to have your own personality. You can learn some X-ing and O-ing, but you can’t learn how to treat somebody, you can’t learn how to motivate somebody. That’s what separates the good coaches from the not-so-successful coaches; they can get their message across and have good rapport with their players. Nowadays, I don’t think you can yell at players. Kids aren’t intimidated by it and won’t listen. Players are a little smarter, they want to know how to score more points or block better. It’s not a matter of screaming at them, one thing I’ve learned over the years. I don’t like that particular style now. You see it mostly in other sports. You don’t see a lot of it in volleyball, but I know a lot of it goes on behind the closed practice door. There is a time and place to raise your voice, but I don’t think it’s a way to coach all the time. I’ve never been able to predict if a person will end up being a coach. One way you can probably figure it out is if they want to know about the techniques and X-ing and O-ing and how to put together a lineup. They say the best players rarely make the best coaches. Maybe the expectations are too high,

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they expect their players to play like they played—what’s so hard about this skill?—but it’s the second-string second basemen who become managers, not the big homerun sluggers. There’s got to be that desire to know the game. But again, it’s the personality of the coach that’s going to determine if they are successful or not—how they handle crisis situations, how they handle their staff, even how they handle people in the office, the secretaries, support staff, even the janitors who clean the office. It’s a huge job and not everybody can do it. When you see unsuccessful coaches, something about them has dragged them down. The game has changed dramatically simply because of money. Texas, Nebraska, and Penn State are not the only ones with big budgets now—Alabama has a big budget, and there are many others. I wouldn’t say anybody in the Pac-12 is successful solely because they have a big budget, but if you have a big budget and a great campus and a great academic reputation, now you are getting into the things girls want. A good coach and really good academics are primary, and then the rest of it might come into play, like facilities and location. Sometimes my friends in the major conferences just make me smile. Ali Longo told me this story about how Penn State—she played there her first two years—couldn’t get its regular charter plane when it went to the final four in Tampa in 2009. They had to take the school’s prop plane and stop once because they couldn’t make it to Tampa without refueling. Russ was fuming about what a hardship that was. I don’t think the Pac-12 charters airplanes much, if at all, but the Big 12 does for sure. For a volleyball program, that’s a really big expense, but for the Big 12, I guess not. They decided to play conference matches Wednesday and Saturday nights, travel after class Tuesday and Friday, and get back Wednesday night and miss just one day of school. They justify paying for the charter because they only miss one day of class time. Our road trips are beyond anything anyone can imagine, so we don’t even want to hear that kind of story. I think the priorities for a program now are that you have to have student-athlete amenities. In addition, you have to have good practice facilities and a good playing venue, if it’s not the same. You have to have great academic services. It helps to have a really good campus life— things to do on campus. That’s what girls want, I think. In that area, UH is lacking somewhat. I think the campus life is better now, there’s more to do. Not that our players all take part, but at least it’s there. We have great academic support. We have bits and pieces of what’s important, but we don’t have the whole package. The administration has been cooperative; anytime I’ve asked for something, it’s usually given to us. But again, it’s mainly because of our fan base and the fact that we’re winning that girls come to UH.

-VYTLYPSSPHTZUL]LY[YH]LSLK[VNL[OLY\U[PS[OL`Z[HY[LKWSH`PUNMVY;LHTHOPULMHUZSVVRYPNO[H[OVTLPU*SL]LSHUKH[ [OL ÄUHSMV\Y7OV[VI`*VY`3\TJV\Y[LZ` VMHonolulu Star-Advertiser.

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In the early days, my assistant coach was usually a friend who had nothing better to do. I don’t know how many of them were paid in the beginning. Alan Kang was the first one because he was around the UH campus and knew all the players and had volleyball expertise, besides being the head coach in 1974. Then it became a series of acquaintances who were really good volleyball guys. Dave DeGroot was one of the first—he went on to coach Cal—and Charlie Jenkins, who is a good friend of mine, helped us in 1977. I met Charlie Brande through club volleyball. I recruited some of his players and got many of the Orange County players to come to UH in the early days. In the ’70s, Dave DeGroot was the technical guy. He was old-school for sure and got most of his knowledge from his dad, Burt, an old-time volleyball coach. Alan was the “everybody’s friend” kind of coach, real good at nurturing and knew the pulse of the team better than me and DeGroot. Recruiting was pretty basic back then, and I was the only one on our staff who did it; I have way more help now. Back then, if girls were interested in you, they would write. There were phone calls, but calls were always awkward for me. You can ask players how many calls they ever had from me, and it would be one or two at the most. Dean Nowack moved here after a divorce and was just hanging out, being Dean. He had played for UC Santa Barbara and played and coached for the IVA (International Volleyball Association), the pro league in America at that time. He knew a lot about volleyball and was a really good coach. I think we were a good combination, because he knew the game, he could contribute to the overall game plan, and he was good enough in each of the areas where I could give him a duty to coach, whether it was middles, outsides, or setters. He was really versatile, and I felt comfortable giving him a lot of responsibility.

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What Dean was best at was keeping the team loose. He was somebody who could always—no matter what the situation—make it humorous. That went a long way in defusing a lot of tense situations. Most of my assistant coaches had to be the nice guy. I was the one who was yelling and screaming. If there was a punishment to dole out, obviously I had to do it. The assistant coaches were just there to try and calm the players down. You can’t have two people yelling at a player. Howard Wallace started coaching with me as a volunteer. I knew him when he was a student at UH. I would call him a volleyball groupie: he just hung around and followed the team, volunteered to do all the grunt work. He was a really good guy, and I felt real comfortable with him. Howard was totally different from Dean, more of a quiet, hardworking guy. He would do anything for the program. Dean was a fly-by-night, wing-it kind of guy. Howard did all the scouting reports, all the pregame, and was really detail oriented. He came up with game plans and was the chief scout. Most of our assistant coaches, especially the men, had film duties. That’s a time-consuming job. We need to know the tendencies of every hitter and where they like to hit, and Howard always knew. Charlie Wade was one of those club guys I got close with. He owned Magnum Volleyball and had a player I recruited—Sarah Chase, and before that Kee Williams. Owning a club volleyball business is not always fun and not always rewarding. Clubs fall in and out of favor with kids’ parents, and I think he was tired of running the club business. He was one of the first to have his own gym and his own equipment, and he was providing a lot of opportunities for kids while making some decent money too. Charlie was one of those coaches who you either love or hate. He wasn’t the nurturing type, didn’t much care for coaching the second team. He wanted the first team to get most of the reps. He could fire them up, that’s for sure. Many times he was the one in the locker room who would stir the pot and challenge the girls. He wasn’t afraid to call out people and challenge them about their effort. When Howard and Charlie were on the staff together in 1995, I had to talk to Marilyn Moniz-Kaho‘ohanohano, the women’s athletic director, because we were one of only a handful of staffs in the country that was all male. I knew that wasn’t going to last, I knew Marilyn wouldn’t keep agreeing to that situation. When Charlie came in, we had three males on the staff. Soon after, Howard left and Kari Anderson was hired. I think Kari was more like the second-string second baseman who goes into managing or

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It’s not a matter of Dave being right, it’s a matter of his players getting better. It’s not like we’re getting the same players Stanford gets year in and year out, but he’s just so willing to learn, keep an open mind, adapt and really put his ego on the side. —Ann Miller, “University of Hawaii Volleyball Coach Shoji Nears 1,000th Win,” Honolulu Advertiser, October 16, 2009. There’s a lot more than meets the eye to being a head coach. As an assistant, you get pigeonholed into doing one-third of what you need to do as a head coach. We’ve tried a few times to rotate duties so an assistant gets a better idea of what goes into different areas of the game. I’m always telling my assistants to look for head coaching positions. Right when I hire someone, I tell them that their next goal is to be a head coach and the sooner the better. I don’t think you get into the game to be a lifetime assistant. There are a lot of guys out there in other sports who are lifetime assistants, but in volleyball it doesn’t pay enough for all the work. It’s only the head coach who gets the big paycheck. I don’t want them to go, but they really need to go and find that head coaching job. Coaching now is definitely more specialized. There’s more recruiting involved, and film work also takes a lot of hours. Time in the gym is mandated to twenty hours a week, and you’ve got administrative duties as well. It’s not a great profession, especially as a second assistant, but if you love the game, then you sacrifice. Everybody is a little different as far as what they like about coaching and what they don’t. I’m not great at technology, so anything that takes knowledge of technology I don’t relish, and film work now is so technical. I’m not a numbers guy, so that’s one thing Scott does. I wouldn’t even know how to break down the film at this point. We are one of the few top programs—maybe the only one—that doesn’t have a director of operations. We’ve always shared the duties, and it seems like a waste of manpower to me, but I admit if I didn’t have to worry about all the travel, rental cars, per diem, hotel, I’d be a much happier guy. It takes a special person to be a director of operations—they’ve got to be so attentive to the numbers. In the big picture, though, I’m not working twelve hours a day. I’m not buried in work, I’ve got free time. It’s not such a demanding job. I know what football coaches go through, and we are not even close to their time commitments. I see their doors closed all the time, I know what my sonin-law, Coleman (Florida assistant football coach), goes through. I know a lot of football coaches, and they are usually buried in work and film and meetings. It’s so detailed and so complicated. Our game is not that complicated. I am, however, pretty much of a micromanager. Everything that has anything to do with the

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program I worry about and want to make sure it’s right. So even though I delegate a lot of duties, I still oversee almost everything that comes out of our office, whether it’s the brochure for a summer camp, one for our golf tournament . . . it all goes through me and it’s just the way I am. I’m not going to let something go that’s not right because it all comes back to me. I’ll call my assistants on misspellings and insignificant things that are still important to me, and they’re good about it. I’ve been very fortunate to have great people as assistants. We’re not always on the same page in the heat of a game, but it is pretty close, pretty comfortable.

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