UH's Shoji closing on 800th career victory
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
PROVO, Utah — Before rally scoring became the rage in women's collegiate volleyball, Hawai'i and Brigham Young played deep into a 1998 Las Vegas day. After 3 hours and 38 minutes, the Rainbow Wahine won their inaugural Western Athletic Conference title, 24-22 in the fifth game.
"That has to be the premier match of collegiate volleyball, or at least one," says Elaine Michaelis, who won 887 matches as the BYU coach before retiring in May to become the school's full-time director of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics.
"For us and them, it was just classic," adds UH coach Dave Shoji. "What you play for."
Tonight at Smith Fieldhouse, the teams play for the first time since slugging it out in the sport's longest match. If the second-ranked Rainbows (28-1) win here and at 24th-ranked Utah tomorrow, Shoji will become the fourth women's volleyball coach with 800 victories. Michaelis, UCLA's Andy Banachowski and St. Louis' Marilyn Nolen are the others.
It is a far cry from Shoji's shy start in 1975 and the first of four national championships in 1979, when he made $2,000 as the Rainbow Wahine coach and juggled three other jobs. What has not changed is his full-time passion.
"I still get pumped up for every game," says Shoji, who has an .845 winning percentage (798-146). "I look forward to going to the gym.
"I have no regrets. Coaching has provided me with something I like to do. It's never really felt like work. I have a great life."
His youngest son is a seventh-grader. Shoji, who turns 56 in a week, plans to coach until Erik is out of high school, at least. The goal every year will be a national championship, as it has been every previous year.
The school's most celebrated program keeps it simple and successful. All that changes are the faces and the subtle shifts in personalities, priorities, athleticism and tactics.
"I treat the players more like adults than earlier in my career," Shoji says. "I realize that they really have to determine their course in life. It's part of the climate of today's youth. Coaches used to be very controlling and some still are. I just don't think that works anymore."
His practices have taken on a gentler tone and his players have grown in sophistication and stature. The Rainbow Wahine had to grow to keep pace. Players come into college with skills coaches never dreamed of 20 years ago.
Their early opportunities are vastly improved and their athleticism is now enhanced at an earlier age. They jump higher, hit harder and move faster. They expect more from their coaches in terms of technique, motivation and preparation.
Michaelis used to show her teams film of Hawai'i's trademark defense, but she and Shoji both say that exceptional ballhandling is no longer enough to beat the best teams. You need size and strength. And there are now many more "best" teams recruiting "the same 10 best players" every year.
"What I remember most about Hawai'i volleyball is its great defense," Michaelis says. "But over the last few years he has had some good athletic hitters. Angelica Ljungquist and some of those kids brought a different element into Dave's game. Now I see his game is a lot more like others. Nobody does defense as well, but now he does more with the net game."
Shoji studies coaching philosophies the way some study stocks. He shows up at football, basketball and baseball practices at UH and watches ESPN coaches' profiles. Shoji sees more games in a week than some will in a year, from intermediate volleyball to junior tennis and golf, to high school playoffs, every UH sport, pro games on road trips and enough TV sports to support a small cable station.
His coaching style is all about fundamentals and repetitions until a match starts. Then he filters all he's analyzed and coaches purely on instinct. That last "classic" with BYU, along with his first two national championships, were the ultimate evidence of his gift. Even his players didn't know what he would say next.
"I like the challenge of the games, the big games, because there is a lot going into it," Shoji says. "All the little things in a big match count now. You do your basic work early in the week and early in the season and then you just fine-tune, tweak it, try to get the most out of every individual on your squad."
His greatest challenge now is to win the final match, something the Rainbow Wahine have not done in 15 years.
"We haven't been able to win 'the' match, whether it's the semifinals or regional finals, we've come up short," he says. "Obviously it's not one thing but ... we've had poor performances, that's one reason. And we've come up against teams that have gotten really hot. Some of the matches were hanging in the balance and we couldn't come up with the big play.
"One thing we're trying with this team is to get them to play up to their potential. Not burden them with having to win. They want to win, but we need for them to feel good about whatever they end up doing. We don't want to go into a match unable to perform because we put too much pressure on ourself. Every team has a soft spot. There is always something that might prevent you from winning the national championship, but the ones that win overcome those little things."
Hawai'i is playing this week for the right to host an NCAA regional. The Cougars (14-17), who upset regular-season champion Colorado State in the Mountain West semifinals, are playing for pride after falling to Utah in the tournament championship. That was their final shot to make their 13th consecutive NCAA Tournament and avoid their first losing season in history. The Cougars have lost three starting middle blockers, two outside hitters and an All-American to injury, illness and pregnancy this season.
QUICK SETS: The Hawai'i-BYU match will be broadcast live at 3:45 p.m., HST, on 1420-AM. ... BYU was scheduled to fly to Hawai'i on Sept. 11 last year for a match. That trip was canceled. ... The Rainbow Wahine's bid to host the NCAA Tournament's first and second round and regional was for Thursday and Friday, Dec. 5-6 and 12-13.
