Arnott elevated her game for UH
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Freshman Alicia Arnott is "in drills, right there with Kim and Lily," according to UH volleyball coach Dave Shoji.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser State Farm Volleyball Classic WHERE: Stan Sheriff Center WHEN: Tomorrow — No. 3 Florida vs. No. 1 Southern California, 5 p.m.; No. 2 Hawai'i vs. No. 15 Kansas State, 7. Saturday — Consolation match, 5 p.m., followed by championship match at approximately 7. TV/RADIO: 1420 AM will broadcast UH matches. KFVE will show both matches tomorrow. Saturday's championship will be shown Sept. 2 at 8:30 a.m. on ESPN2. TICKETS: Two-day packages are $30 (lower level), $24 (upper), $18 senior citizens, $12 students 4-older. If seats remain, individual match tickets sold game day at $16, $13, $9 and $6. PARKING: $3 |
Hawai'i coach Dave Shoji characterizes Arnott as the only real surprise of double-day practices leading to tomorrow's season-opening State Farm Classic.
The freshman out of La Pietra didn't blow him away with talent. That happened the past two years as she blossomed from a "marginal Division I prospect" into a player capable of hanging tough with All-Americans Lily Kahumoku and Kim Willoughby.
Now, Arnott is impressing him with attitude.
"I'm just impressed she's holding her own," says Shoji, who has hesitated to redshirt Arnott because he believes she can help Hawai'i win a national title now. "She's not timid, she's got a pure arm swing, she's in great condition and she's a lot further along than we thought she'd be.
"She's got game. In drills, she's right there with Kim and Lily."
The thought of that is mind-boggling, particularly when you see the unimposing Arnott next to the always-imposing All-Americans.
Even with all-state senior honors and a "Fab 50" recruit label from Volleyball magazine, Arnott won't scare off any of the Top 15 teams at Stan Sheriff Center the next two nights. But she scared herself two years ago and what followed was a quantum leap from not looking past La Pietra to the second-ranked college team in the country.
Arnott traces the change in her life to a walk back to her hotel from a Mainland tournament two years ago.
"I wasn't happy with the way I played. I knew I could do better," Arnott recalled. "I decided after the last game that I would change.
"I started working harder and focusing more, even in school ... in my whole life. I started thinking about the future."
She began to throw her bike in the back of her truck so she could ride to the weight room every day. In two years, her vertical jump gained five inches. Arnott, a slim 6-foot hitter, gave herself a goal of touching 10 feet, which she just reached.
She changed her diet and pumped up her practice and study habits. Arnott estimates she worked 80-percent harder than she had before, which, admittedly, was not hard enough.
She even researched the subtleties of playing for Hawai'i's most celebrated women's team.
"It was a silent dream of hers to play for Hawai'i," says La Pietra middle school dean Mahina Eleneki Hugo, a starter on the Rainbow Wahine's last NCAA championship team. "I don't know if she thought it would happen, but she always listened intently when I was telling stories about the team and dorm life. She always stopped by to ask me about it."
Eleneki offered more than anecdotes. One day she sat Arnott down and simply said, "You can't be so nice."
"When you get out there you need to prove yourself," Eleneki said. "I told her don't be going 'You first.' Go ahead. You can do that off the court, not on."
As Arnott's future began to fall together, she finally allowed herself to take Hawai'i's offer seriously. She remembers watching the Rainbow Wahine while growing up in Hilo (the family moved to Ho-nolulu when Alicia was 12).
Suddenly, the thought of playing for them was not so far-fetched. "I thought it would be neat, after watching them from when I was little, to playing for them when I'm older," she said.
She's convinced Shoji there's much more to it than being "neat." Arnott is not intimidated by her surroundings or overwhelmed by anything thrown her way. Even if Willoughby or Kahumoku is throwing it.
"Lily is hitting the ball as hard as Kim now," says Arnott, not shy about soaking up everything she can from the All-Americans. "People said when she came back from the year off she wouldn't hit the ball as hard, but she hits the ball really, really hard. This preseason, I've seen them hit the hardest balls they've ever hit."
