While it is disappointing that University of Hawai'i coach Dave Shoji and the legion of Rainbow Wahine volleyball fans will now have to wait until Saturday for the long-awaited 1,000th career victory, it is, in a way, appropriate, too.

The delay caused by severe weather complications in getting Louisiana Tech out of Shreveport , La., serves as a useful reminder, however small, that the road to this milestone was not without its potholes and challenges for Shoji and the Rainbow Wahine.

Watching UH mow down one WAC opponent after another, it is easy to think that it has been a joy ride from UC-Riverside, his first victory in 1975, up through now.

Fact is that it hasn't always been as easy as they have sometimes made it look, which is yet another reason to celebrate the achievement Saturday.

Time was when standing up to a Stanford, UCLA or Southern California, tough as it was, was only half of the challenge some weekends. Just getting the Rainbow Wahine on their home court was nearly as harrowing. Beating the Cardinal, Bruins or Trojans was one thing. Trying to keep from getting beaten up by the groups of sometimes angry recreation and intramural league basketball players Shoji had to shoo off the Klum Gym floor was something else.

"It could be tough trying to clear out (Klum) on a Saturday so we could have a match or a practice," Shoji recalls. In the days before Rainbow Wahine volleyball had established itself with four national titles, Shoji said, "some of the (basketball players) didn't take too well to being pushed out for women's volleyball."

Shoji used to flick the gym lights on and off as a closing time signal, but sometimes delicate diplomacy was called for, too.

Long before UH was sweeping conference opponents, coaches and players were sweeping up the Klum Gym floor before matches and rolling up the bleachers afterward.

During the time the Rainbow Wahine played at Blaisdell Arena, they also lined the courts with tape and strung up the nets. "In those days," Shoji recalled, "you didn't have poles in the ground so you had to find other ways to string it out and tie up nets. It could be a challenge."

Scheduling 10-day road trips in days of being an independent was tricky, but sometimes not as complicated as organizing rides to and from the airports. "We didn't get buses then, so we'd have mothers, fathers, uncles, aunties — everybody — involved," Shoji said.

However easy No. 1,000 might go down Saturday, the three-day wait for it should underline that it wasn't always so.