Hawaii Rainbow Wahine volleyball

Hawaii Rainbow Wahine
Volleyball
UniversityUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa
Head coachRobyn Ah Mow (7th season)
ConferenceBig West
LocationManoa, Hawaii
Home arenaStan Sheriff Center (capacity: 10,300)
NicknameRainbow Wahine
ColorsGreen, black, silver, and white[1]
       
AIAW/NCAA Tournament champion
1979, 1982, 1983, 1987
AIAW/NCAA Tournament runner-up
1974, 1975, 1977, 1988, 1996
AIAW/NCAA Tournament semifinal
1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009
AIAW/NCAA Tournament appearance
1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023
Conference tournament champion
WAC
1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011
Big West
2023
Conference regular season champion
PCAA
1987
WAC
1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
Big West
1988, 1989, 1990, 1995, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2022
The Stan Sheriff Center's capacity crowd during a routine NCAA Tournament Match vs. USC (2011)

The Hawaii Rainbow Wahine volleyball team is an NCAA Division I women's volleyball team for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. They are a member of the Big West Conference and are led by head coach, Robyn Ah M, Mow-Santos. The Rainbow Wahine volleyball program remains a large source of financial income for the University of Hawaii athletic department, even surpassing what football and men's basketball generates.

Grandfathered in, and straddling the line between the two governing bodies of the AIAW and NCAA, Joyce Kapuaala-Kaapuni started with Hawaii in 1974 (alongside USAV's 1970 World's participant Beth McLachlin). She'd continue with her UH college career in 1982-83 forging first in the NCAA, winning back-to-back national championships.

As shown, volleyball has always been a celebrated linchpin between islands. A token manifested, then, person being, Kawehi Ka'a'a (2x UHH First Team All-American) who'd participate in three Final Fours (AIAW, UHH, 1978 & 1979 and AIAW, UHM, 1980). The follow-up was a Regional Final versus USC in the inaugural NCAAs, 1981. The UHM WVB program moreover frequently pays visits to Hilo and Kahului in competition during the spring. In 1974, for back-to-back matches somewhere between Sept.–Nov., it all began coincidentally on the island of Kaua'i, the eldest of all major-islands in the Hawaiian archipelago.

The team has won four national championships: one AIAW title and three NCAA Division I titles. The Rainbow Wahine played in the Big West Conference from 1988 to 1995. They joined the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) in 1996 and clinched at least a share of the regular-season conference title each year until 2012, when the Rainbow Wahine re-joined the Big West Conference. Hawaii won the WAC Tournament (and the WAC's automatic NCAA Tournament bid) in 1998 and every year between 2001 and 2011 except in 2010, when Hawaii lost in the tournament's final round to the Utah State Aggies. All four national championship squads have been team inducted into the UH Hall of Honour, of the Hawaii Athletics most prestigious, since 1981-82 (the NCAA's WVB birth).

Under the banner of 1987 Hawaiian Airlines, UH would capture the third placed Berkeley, CA, USAV Open Nationals title (of mid-May) this year. A Tita of UHM, being recognized as the consecutive all-tourney, had fallen to NorCal's Carlson Chrysler (1st place) and the American SW's Merrill Lynch (2nd).[2]

In 1988, Major League Volleyball (MLV), the first all-female volleyball league in the United States, selected Swedish all-American player from the University of Hawaii, [Name of the player], as the number one overall draft pick for the Los Angeles Starlites. Following her tenure in MLV, she competed in the international beach volleyball circuit representing Sweden.

Brigham Young University–Hawaii, which ceased its athletic programs in 2017, holds the distinction of being a ten-time National Champion, with its most recent title in NCAA Division II. It was also one of the few institutions in Hawaii to have defeated the University of Hawaii's Rainbow Wahine volleyball team, achieving this feat in 1992. Robyn Ah Mow-Santos, who would become the head coach at the University of Hawaii, played a pivotal role in revitalising the team. Under her guidance, the team reached the NCAA Regional Final in Long Beach, California, in 1993.

On 21 October 1994, the Rainbow Wahine played their first match in the Stan Sheriff Center against the AVCA polled RV San Jose State Spartans. The Rainbow Wahine led the nation in home game attendance from 1995 to 2014, with a cumulative average of more than 6,800 fans per match, until the Nebraska Cornhuskers moved into the Devaney Center and began averaging over 8,000 fans at each home match.[3][4]

The 1996 NCAA Division I women's volleyball tournament began with 48 teams (with a 12 team, six matches play-in meet) which ended on December 21, 1996, when Stanford defeated Hawaiʻi in the NCAA championship match. In the order of 3–0 sweeps, UH went over, routing, Colorado, Texas, BYU, Florida before succumbing 0–3, themselves, to the Cardinal. Retrospective this current 2017–present, Wahine-now leaders are the Head Coach, the Assistant Coach and the Director of Volleyball Operations; perhaps not coincidentally they were the principled head-women as athletes then.

Junior #2-Susie Boogaard (2002–2005), iffy, informally, has the best season of her UH career. Averaging approximately 15 home matches per year, the parents of Boogaard had purchased tickets for unlimited flights, on annual passes by ATA Airlines, out of Los Angeles into Honolulu.[5] The Ahuna's (1984–1987), reflexive, went Honolulu to the Continental U.S.[6]

It would be also that in 2006, former player Kari Anderson (1991–94) moved into the associate head coach's position; she'd been an Assistant ever since '96-1997. She is still the longest tenured right-handed aide in UH WVB history. She'd retired from volleyball in early 2011.

UHM is a perfect 24–0 against UH Hilo in their own state turf series, dating back to the mid-1970s. On September 12, 2009, the program notched its 1,000th victory with a 3–0 win over Stanford; this series favors UH 19–13. On December 11, 2015, the Wahine defeated seven-time national champions Penn State 3–0. Rarefied, NU(s'), of the great state consequentially of Nebraska, archives presenting the 8-8 HI-NE tie makes for Hawaiian celebratory tenor; the Rainbow and Cornhuskers wahine (beginning with 1975), both showstoppers, they codify the winner's tradition(s).

On 1989 December 8, 1989, a number one ranked Rainbow Wahine, quite objectively, referenced through annals which show those (that) analyzed statistically (e.g. kills, digs and percentages); they'd beat another AVCA Top 25 program in Cal Poly SLO, at Stockton, California, in the regional semifinal 15–9, 15–17, 9–15, 15–12, 15–12. Others via the official NCAA's history might suggest that the longest game of 3+12 hours, between the #6 BYU Cougars and #7 UH, this manages ensured the best match chronicled with a UH win 15–12, 21–19, 13–15, 16–18, 24–22. This latter mentioned match occurred in the 1998 Las Vegas WAC Championships final. Of that 1998 post–season blossomed run into the NCAA Elite Eight, having incidentally been 1996 sophomore understudy to Coach Ah Mow at setter, Nikki (sept Ivarie's) Hubbert would appear and win the Family Feud game show versus the Couchois clan (2007). Senior-Hubbert holds the all time UH record(s) for total assists and assists per set in a year: 1998.[7]

To date the Rainbow Wahine are a perfect 4–0 against the U.S. Armed Services (Air Force, Navy, Army and Coast Guard). They are 1-0 versus the Ivy League ('W' on Brown, 12/98). They stand with HURCN Lane at 39?-38 along their long-time rival's side, UCLA of the robust Pac-12. Na Wahine is 1–0 versus U.S. International, now Alliant University; they are tied (at 0s) with Sul Ross State University Texas, being thee original AIAW power (then DGWS - Division of Girls and Women in Sport), who first sponsored women's intercollegiate volleyball beginning in 1970.

Crew 2008: Not since UH's AIAW days had a team been recognised with those assembled recipients, being called to be as it were, stacked with prominent national accolades. These individuals included, 1st Team AVCA all-American Kanani Danielson, 1st Team Volleyball Magazine all-Americans Amber Kaufman and Jamie Houston, 2nd Team AVCA all-American Brittany Hewitt, 3rd Team AVCA all-American Aneli Cubi-Otineru, 2xHM AVCA all-American Dani Mafua, The Elite 88 Award winner Stephanie Brandt, COBRA Mag. All-National Stephanie Ferrell. Additionally, TESL Certificate awardee Catherine Fowler-de Silva would promote English while, simultaneously, playing quasi-professionally: Thailand, Asia; England, UK; then later in El Molar, Madrid, Spain (with C.V. Torrejon).[8] They were exclusive hosts to the WAC End-of-season Tournament; going 20–3 at home, 11–1 away, they finished with a common 30+ wins season.

  1. ^ "Campus Signature Examples". University of Hawaii Office of Communications. Retrieved December 5, 2022.
  2. ^ "Tita Ahuna at Berkeley Nationals" (PDF).
  3. ^ "2012 NCAA Women's Volleyball Attendance" (PDF). NCAA. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
  4. ^ Luis, Cindy (February 21, 2017). "Shoji's retirement marks an end of an era". Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Retrieved February 21, 2017.
  5. ^ "Family first for young woman highly touted & (then) decorated Susie".
  6. ^ "Reynette and Reydan "Tita" Ahuna".
  7. ^ "Family Feud winner".
  8. ^ "Trek on Prezi".