For this week, Amber Kaufman and Annett Wichmann are the "Wo-man" and "Wo-mann" for Hawai'i track and field, representing the Rainbow Wahine at the NCAA Indoor Championships tomorrow at College Station, Texas.

If you ask Kaufman, a world-class high jumper who moonlights as an all-conference volleyball player, it has always been that way for Wichmann.

"Since I got here she has been, like, 'The Man,' " said Kaufman, a junior. "Nothing has changed."

Well, something has. Kaufman came to Manoa as a raw talent with a takeoff so explosive it often compensated for flawed fundamentals. Now, despite spending the bulk of her training time working out with the country's seventh-ranked volleyball team, she is a two-time Western Athletic Conference champion whose fifth-place finish at last year's NCAA Outdoor Championship was only a warmup for the Olympic Trials.

"The Trials made me feel like I was never going to the Olympics in high jump, but it was really fun," said Kaufman, who finished seventh. "I was around Amy Acuff, who is like the world's greatest jumper, in the same pit. It was just cool."

Kaufman comes into her first NCAA Indoors ranked seventh, and with Wichmann's eternal awe. "You see her take off, voom," the senior pentathlete said. "She goes up in the sky and never comes back down."

Kaufman's jaw-dropping hops and hang time are the foundation of her volleyball success, but her future is in the high jump.

"Amber is just very confident out there," UH coach Carmyn James said. "She just goes for it, just lets it out at takeoff."

Kaufman's key at her first Indoor national tomorrow, according to James, is to deal with the crazy, condensed new atmosphere she finds and "stay in a little cocoon imagining she's back in Hawai'i." That allows her to focus on fundamentals, particularly driving her knee up.

Kaufman puts it a bit differently: "I've got to try not to freak out ...," she said. "I get really nervous, get a little weird and all the girls laugh at me. I have to stay calm and get my head into it."

Wichmann is as soft-spoken and analytical as Kaufman is off-the-wall. Pentathlon's multi-discipline format is an ideal fit for her relentless search for perfection.

Her face after a fantastic performance looks the same as her face after a poor one, according to her coach. That ability to leave the past behind in the time it takes her to walk to the next event is a major cog in her success as she heads into the final months of her collegiate career — also a piece of her All-America puzzle this final year.

"I envy her 'Germanator' mentality," Kaufman said. "She is a really hard worker and never satisfied until she does her best. She is so intense it's awesome."

James believes the intensity is something they share, even with their diverse styles. She has seen both thrive in elite settings. For Wichmann it all starts, ironically, with staying calm and looking inward.

"That's the only way I can get the best out of myself and that's all I can ask," she said. "If I focus on others it just messes me up. I need to use others for inspiration and not get distracted."

The Outdoor season starts next week and ends in June, with the NCAA Championship in Arkansas.