UH-Hilo coach will recruit more foreigners
By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer
Julie Morgan, who was hired by UH-Hilo on Wednesday, said she's looking to recruit blue-chip foreign players similar to what defending Division II champion Brigham Young Hawai'i and Hawai'i Pacific have done in recent seasons.
"If you look at Brigham Young-Hawai'i and Hawai'i Pacific, one of the reasons why they have climbed even stronger is they have foreign players on their team," said Morgan, 47, a 1974 Punahou graduate and former Salt Lake (Utah) Community College coach.
"I have big plans to familiarize myself with the Hawai'i high school and club programs and try to do my best in Hawai'i first. (But) those players alone will not be able to battle the best teams in Division II without some help both outside the islands and possibly outside the country."
Women's volleyball is UH-Hilo's flagship women's sport, but in the past five years, UH-Hilo has had one winning season and has gone 51-80 during that span.
The Vulcans compete in the six-team Pacific West Conference, which has three other Hawai'i teams: Hawai'i Pacific, Chaminade and Brigham Young-Hawai'i.
The UH-Hilo volleyball program, unlike BYUH and HPU, does not have any foreign players on its roster. Last season, BYUH had four foreign players, including award-winning freshmen Chun Yi Lin and Yu Chuan Weng from Taiwan, and Hawai'i Pacific had five, including All-American Susy Garbelotti of Brazil.
UH-Hilo athletic director Kathleen McNally said she encouraged Morgan to pursue foreign players and called UH-Hilo a "natural fit" for those student-athletes because the school has strong academic and English-language support and favorable student-to-teacher ratios.
"We have a lot of foreign players here," McNally said. "Our men's and women's tennis teams are almost all foreign players. If (Morgan) can make the network work, she can go get them."
Morgan said she's been successful at Salt Lake Community College in recruiting players from Brazil, but she understood that pursuing foreign players requires more than just persistence.
"It costs a lot of money to treat them, to house them, and to take care of them in such a foreign place," Morgan said. "Our junior college conference was very similar to the (PacWest). We had two teams that dominated and they dominated because they had really talented foreign players in addition to very strong players from the state.
"I will do whatever the university wants me to do, if they want me to bring in some foreign players from oversees, then I'll look into doing that," Morgan continued. "But I definitely won't skip the talented players who are right in our back yard."
McNally said Morgan has been hired on a one-year contract with a pay range of $34,032-$51,036. Morgan has not yet hired an assistant, McNally said.
Morgan replaced longtime coach Sharon Peterson who announced her retirement in December. Peterson, who coached Morgan at Punahou, was the only intercollegiate volleyball coach UH-Hilo has had and guided the Vulcans for 25 years. Peterson's teams won seven national championships and compiled a 511-251 record.
