University of Hawai'i women's volleyball coach Dave Shoji will be justifiably celebrated and applauded tomorrow night when the Rainbow Wahine deliver his 1,000th career victory.

Too bad, though, he can't be placed in a glass case in the Stan Sheriff Center lobby, the better to preserve for posterity a likely never-to-be-seen again figure and chapter in school history.

Not in women's volleyball. Not in the men's game. Not likely in any sport UH participates in.

Like College Hall of Fame baseball coach Les Murakami before him, Shoji is one of the last of a pioneering breed on campus, throwbacks from a rapidly fading era.They are coaches of rare vision, steadfast permanence and enviable stability who stayed and thrived, building their legacy from the ground up over decades.

In Shoji's case, not many schools are handing over programs of note to 27-year-old coaches with minimal college experience anymore and telling them to run with it. The resume Shoji brought with him in 1975 might not even get him in the door for an interview now. In that regard, UH got hit-the-lottery lucky with its hire — and so did he.

Let's also not forget that in this age of instant communication and far-reaching criticism not even the sainted can satisfy their constituency for anything approaching the run Shoji's had. Those who do win are likely to be wooed away in quick order to more verdant pastures.

Consider it remarkable if whomever follows in his sneakers can last a decade or win a quarter of the matches Shoji has. He's had 34 consecutive winning seasons and averaged almost 29 victories a year.

The days when a school like UH, somebody not aligned with the major power conferences, could win multiple national championship, much less four, are gone. They have fallen victim to the growing financial imbalance between the haves, the Bowl Championship Series automatic conferences, and the haven-nots, everybody else. Look at what has happened to Louisiana Tech's position in women's basketball.

The Rainbow Wahine got in on the ground floor of women's volleyball with their first national championship preceeding the NCAA's version by two years. But the landscape has changed dramatically just in the last decade as the BCS schools have pumped money into volleyball improving coaching salaries, recruiting and facilities. So much so that it is hardly a coincidence no non-BCS school has won the national championship in the last 10 years and only one has made it to a championship final.

We're not liable to see a run like Shoji's again, ample reason to applaud it, celebrate it and remember it tomorrow.