Senior walk-ons keep UH scout team running

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

The leading Lizards are ready to make their curtain call.

Leaping Lizards! That's walk-ons Ryne Holliday (25) and Lance Takaki (10). They, along with fellow senior Mark Campbell (15) play their final home games this week. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

Ryne Holliday and Lance Takaki — key members of the University of Hawai'i scout team nicknamed the Lizards — will close their four-year basketball careers this week. The senior walk-ons will suit up for their final home games tonight against Boise State and Saturday against Texas-El Paso.

Holliday, Takaki and senior captain Mark Campbell will be honored after Saturday's game.

"I'm going to miss it, but I know it's time to move on," Takaki said.

For Holliday and Takaki, four years have been measured in hope and hustle rather than points and rebounds.

They are the leaders — senior captains, if you will — of the scout team in practice. Their main duty is to imitate opponents to prepare the UH starters for games.

"It's our job to motivate the other guys," Holliday said. "You dream of playing (in games), sure. But I think we both realized that wasn't going to happen. Our game time is every day in practice."

"The Lizards are a pain in the butt," Campbell said. "They go hard every play in practice. If we let down for a second, they'll beat us."

The daily goal of the Lizards is to get UH head coach Riley Wallace into a shouting frenzy at the starters. "If he's yelling, that means we're doing our job," Holliday said.

Sometimes, it can be comical.

Once, when Holliday drained non-stop 3-pointers on the starters, Wallace stopped practice and screamed: "This (expletive) nothing is lighting you guys up!"

Holliday smiled and hissed in the background, and the rest of the scout team jokingly called him "(expletive) nothing" for the rest of the week.

Another time, when Takaki was having a productive practice, Wallace said to the starters: "If you guys can't stop a 4-footer, I don't know who you guys can stop."

In between hisses, Takaki kept saying "5-4 Coach, 5-4."

Real game time has been minimal for Holliday and Takaki.

Holliday, a 6-foot guard, has scored 11 points in 31 minutes. Takaki, a 5-4 guard, has 13 points in 36 minutes. Those are four-year career statistics.

Teammate Carl English gets more than that in one game.

"You have to swallow your pride sometimes, but we know what our role is," Takaki said.

They do get game time at the end of blowout wins and losses, and they cherish every second.

"We try to turn that last minute into 30 minutes," Holliday said. "It's run and gun."

Both players said the mop-up time on the court is a bonus.

Before attending UH, Holliday played at Belleville East High in Illinois. He said he decided to enroll at UH after a vacation trip here with his parents.

"I wasn't a star player in high school, so it wasn't like I had great expectations," he said. "I was just glad to make the team."

Takaki merely walked across the street to the UH-Manoa campus after graduating from Mid-Pacific Institute in 1999. He originally planned to try out for the UH baseball team (he was an all-state second baseman at MPI).

"Everybody told me I should play baseball," he said. "But basketball was what I really wanted to play."

Wallace said he was impressed from that first day.

"I saw how little he was and figured he must be OK if he was trying out for the team," Wallace said. "Once he got on the court, he showed that his heart is bigger than his body."

Both Holliday and Takaki have been walk-ons for four years, meaning they have never received any scholarship benefits that their teammates get.

It costs Holliday approximately $19,000 per year to attend UH as an out-of-state student.

"We knew how much it would cost, and we were willing to pay for most of it," said Ryne's father, Neal Holliday. "But we drew up an actual contract and made him sign it. There were a couple of rules we wanted him to follow if we were going to pay all that money."

First, Holliday had to return home every summer to work a summer job. He gave his parents around $2,000 each year as reimbursement for the UH tuition.

Second, he had to stay out of trouble (which he has). Third, he had to maintain his grades.

Holliday has a 3.0 grade-point average and will graduate in two months with a degree in management information systems.

Takaki's parents have paid for his tuition, and he expects to graduate next year with a degree in communications.

Because of his size and homegrown background, Takaki has been the crowd favorite for the past four years. He is nicknamed Taco, and the final few minutes of blowouts have come to be known as "Taco Time."

"He stands up to fix his pants and the crowd goes nuts thinking he's going in the game," Wallace said. "I wish I could play him more because he creates so much excitement."

Despite their modest numbers, Holliday and Takaki have made history this season. They are the only walk-ons to become four-year letterwinners during Wallace's 16 seasons as head coach.

"I'd like to have more guys like that for four years," Wallace said. "They are true Rainbow Warriors."

• English honored: UH junior Carl English has been named to the third team of the Verizon Academic All-America Men's Basketball Team.

English, the team's leading scorer, has a 3.28 grade-point average and will graduate in two months with a degree in liberal studies.

He is the second UH player to earn Academic All-America honors. Predrag Savovic was a third-team selection last season.

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