Feeling like 13 going on 30

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist

More than a decade after his teams moved out of the place, aging Klum Gym still speaks to University of Hawai'i Rainbow Wahine volleyball coach Dave Shoji.

In its leaky, creaky antiquity, the 48-year-old enduring landmark of the lower Manoa campus reminds Shoji how much of a fixture he, too, has become around the athletic department.

Running a rare youth volleyball camp session out of Klum Gym this summer, Shoji said he came to recall long-ago days when it was a modern wonder to a 10-year-old boy and hospitable home court to a rookie head coach, memories that have provided newly found perspective on what will be his 30th season.

"Thirty years...," Shoji says, rolling the numbers as if still disbelieving their accuracy. "I would say it is amazing because I never really intended this position to be a career. It is amazing that I've gone this long. Thirty years is a lifetime in this business."

Indeed, not only is the 57-year-old Shoji the dean of active UH coaches since Jim Schwitters stepped down after 38 years as tennis coach last year, but he is one of the most senior women's volleyball coaches in the country. Perhaps only UCLA's Andy Banachowski, who begins a 37th season, has been in place longer than Shoji and UC-Santa Barbara's Kathy Gregory, who also is beginning her 30th season.

Pretty good for somebody who was looking to be a high school athletic director and for whom the UH job, initially, was one of several he juggled for a time.

"I don't think there was any thought about being here this long 15 years ago or even 10 years ago," Shoji said. "It was just so far from my mind that I was ever going to be here this long."

Yet, for all the seasons that have come and gone — the 840-149 record and four national championships achieved — Shoji is obviously energized by the challenge that tomorrow's opening of practice brings.

Faced with rebuilding and a lot of new, young faces, including eight freshmen, with which to accomplish it, the man who once sported floppy pageboy hair but still weighs in at less than 150 pounds, says, "I feel young again. I feel good physically and I feel I've got great enthusiasm for the game. This team makes me feel brand new, young again. I mean, I feel like I did a long time ago and I'm looking forward to (the 2004 season)."

Part of it, you suspect, is the opportunity to do some of what Shoji has done best, teach the game hands-on in its many facets, and bring players along. Once upon a time the Rainbow Wahine's success was as much a product of the players it painstakingly developed as of the already-burgeoning stars it attracted.

Already Shoji has had one second-generation player, Tehani Miyashiro (daughter of Joey Akeo), and sees more on the way. "Most of my former players not only have kids playing the game, but some very good players," Shoji said. "Some of them have daughters already out of college, that's what makes you feel old."

How many more of them will get to play for Shoji is the question. "I could see 35 years (in the job), but I can't see beyond 35," he says. "I think that would be a nice time to bow out, I'd be about 62, I'd be fully vested (in the retirement plan) and I think it would be a great time to leave. I'm not ruling out (staying longer), but that's the plan, to wean myself from the job.

"I think, obviously, I'll have to evaluate it when the time comes around. That's a long time to be in the profession. It would be time to get some new blood in the coaching position here."

For now, though, the challenges of 2004 figure to keep UH's senior coach young.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.