When Les Murakami accepted the head coaching job in 1971 for the University of Hawai'i baseball team, he dreamed of a College World Series championship.
But he had more pressing issues: The school had not fielded a baseball team the year before, his practice field lacked a true dirt infield and his team didn't have a college schedule. His was little more than a club team with big dreams. And all Murakami had was a one-year contract.
Less than 10 years later, Murakami and his players were in Omaha, Neb., one win away from claiming the College World Series title.
The Rainbows' rise to glory had captivated UH baseball fans for the latter half of the 1970s. The team played its first full intercollegiate schedule in 1975, but its popularity exploded with the arrival of pitcher Derek Tatsuno.
The 'Aiea High phenom was the most heralded Hawai'i high school player in decades. And he delivered. In his three seasons at UH — 1977, 1978 and 1979 — Tatsuno took college baseball at UH to a new level.
He was Murakami's brightest star, a homegrown southpaw who would rocket fastballs past stupefied batters. Fans regularly filled the 2,500-seat aluminum bleachers in the school's old Rainbow Stadium and watched from beyond the outfield fence during the Tatsuno years. A game at Aloha Stadium drew 18,348 people.
In 1979, Tatsuno was the toast of the college baseball world, becoming the first NCAA pitcher to win 20 games in a single season. UH was ranked No. 1 during the 1979 season by Collegiate Baseball.
After seven players from that team, including Tatsuno, turned pro later that year, UH fans figured the 1980 season would be a lackluster year of rebuilding. Instead, they got their wildest ride yet, with a final stop in Omaha in June.
The team arrived with an impressive record and a humble attitude. By the championship game, they had notched a 12-game winning streak, including eight in the post-season.
They became the darlings of the tournament and Hawai'i's favorite sons. They had no superstars, no All-Americans, no one with a sure shot at big-league baseball. They had only four starting pitchers in their rotation, two of them freshmen.
Even Murakami described them as a group of players whose individual talents were hardly worth mentioning when compared with players on the other teams in Omaha that year. But this was a team with heart, with magic.
The final game, a rematch against the University of Arizona, ended in a 5-3 defeat. There were long faces, to be sure, but they had sent a message people still remember with pride: Hawai'i baseball had arrived.
