Kobe Shoji, father of Dave Shoji, dead at 84

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

Kobe Shoji, the father of University of Hawai'i women's volleyball coach Dave Shoji, died Saturday night.

K. Shoji

"I thought about that," said Dave, whose second-ranked unbeaten team lost the first two games. "I said to myself, 'We've got to win this.' "

Kobe Shoji had battled lung cancer and Parkinson's disease the past year. He entered Queen's Medical Center Oct. 23 with fluid in his lungs and died of natural causes, according to the family.

Shoji was a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He met wife Chiz at a relocation camp in Arizona. Along with Chiz, he leaves behind six grandchildren, three daughters-in-law and three sports-minded sons — Dave, Tom and Kelvin — who are the first to tell you they were never a match for their father.

"I would say my dad was the best and toughest of all of us," said Tom, who coaches volleyball at the University of Southern Colorado. "He had four front teeth knocked out in a football game in college and kept playing. He goes to Germany, fights in the war, is wounded twice and comes back and never talks about it. He was a leader in the war, people looked up to him. Then he comes back and has to fight discrimination and he never complained one bit to us."

Kobe Shoji was described by a family friend as a "sweet bear" for the formidable presence that disguised an exceptionally kind and generous spirit.

He also had a gift for every passion he pursued.

His father, who was 104 when he died, came from Japan and had a lemon farm in Upland, Calif., where Kobe worked and grew to love sports. He long jumped 24 feet in the 1930s and was a single-wing tailback at Chaffey JC and Pomona College.

It was during his junior year at Pomona that the evacuation order came. Kobe chose to go with his family "with nothing more than what we could put in a suitcase" to the internment camp. He enlisted the next year.

When he returned to complete his studies in 1946, he recalled being treated "like nothing happened ... except we were all much more mature due to the wartime experience. We all had the feeling we must do something to make the world a better place to live."

Kobe was a brilliant scholar, earning his Ph.D. in plant physiology from UCLA in 1950. He moved here soon after to teach botany and plant physiology at UH for a decade.

That was the start of his enthusiastic support of Rainbow sports, particularly the volleyball program his oldest son has coached for 30 years.

From 1960 until his retirement in the late 1980s, Shoji worked for C. Brewer and Alexander & Baldwin as a respected agriculturalist. He traveled around the world — living in Iran and Puerto Rico — teaching people how to grow sugar cane.

He retired to spend more time beating his sons and grandsons on the golf course and watching as many UH sports as possible.

Kobe died with Chiz beside him, as always, watching the Rainbows. He missed the end of Hawai'i's latest, greatest comeback, but his family figured he had the best seat in the house anyway. From his vantage point, he could also see grandson Erik win a state high school volleyball championship in Hilo.

Dave knew the end was near for his father and was nearly in tears as he listened to Hawai'i Pono'i before the match. "Every waking moment I'm thinking about him," he had said Friday.

Under Kobe's orders, Dave coached to the final point, then rushed to the hospital.

"Besides being a scholar and athlete he was a loving husband to my mom for over 60 years and a great father and grandfather," Dave Shoji said. "That's the best thing about him. In his own right he was a great man. He accomplished a lot in his life. Everything he did, he did with a lot of enthusiasm and skill."

Services will be 6 p.m. next Monday at Nu'uanu Memorial Park. Visitation is from 4:30 p.m.

Kobe Shoji's final resting place will be National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8043.