Tuesday, July 10, 2001
Konishi has been Chad Konishi grew up in a family that stressed education. He will make that a key in his recruiting for the University of Hawaii baseball team.
bitten by the
coaching bug
The Punahou graduate hopes
he can pass on his knowledge
as the Rainbows' baseball
recruiting coordinatorBy Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.comThe 1989 Punahou School graduate was hired last month by new Rainbow head coach Mike Trapasso. Konishi will be working with the pitchers and serve as recruiting coordinator.
Konishi's parents encouraged him to do what he wanted to do, but managed to mention medicine and law when discussing possible future professions.
He went to the University of California and admits he didn't know what he wanted to do entering college.
"I thought about medicine and kept that option open by majoring in psychology," said Konishi, who is currently on a recruiting trip in the Seattle area.
"I just enjoyed playing baseball at Cal. I enjoyed the college competition. After my eligibility was up, I stayed on as a graduate assistant for a year," Konishi said.
The coaching bug was biting. He was young, had a degree and figured the time was right to explore the coaching profession. He landed a position as San Francisco City College, a junior college program that had not experienced a winning season in 29 years.
"We had a remarkable year, won the conference title. It's the best year I've ever experienced," Konishi said. "What drove me was seeing kids develop, seeing them get somewhere. That's what I enjoyed most."
Firmly committed to coaching now, Konishi took advantage of another opportunity when a position opened up at the University of San Francisco.
"I interviewed and was fortunate to get hired at a young age (24)," said Konishi. "I was thrown into the fire as far as recruiting. Once in the fire, you learn real quick who can play and who can't."
He learned to be picky, learned to evaluate players. USF did not have the full complement of scholarships (11.7) for baseball and tuition costs $28,000 a year.
"You can't make a mistake. It was very good preparation for me," Konishi said.
He had a lot of success recruiting Hawaii players into the USF program through his local contacts. In six years he developed contacts and relationships with coaches from Washington to Southern California to Nevada and Arizona. Konishi will stay with this recruiting base. As a Rainbow assistant, he now will try to convince Hawaii players to stay home.
"I left the islands to go to school and I wasn't recruited by UH," Konishi said. "Our philosophy is to go after the best players in Hawaii and try to keep them home. We're in a strong conference that has sent two teams to the College World Series in the last three years.
"We want to go to Omaha and we want to do it with a nucleus of kids from the islands. We want to compliment them with kids from the mainland. We want to create a fan base. We have to sell ourselves as coaches. We have the facility and we think it will be an awesome situation."
The 30-year-old says victories will come with the development of players. The wins will be just as important as the focus on getting a degree and being good citizens.
"My niche in coaching is to affect and touch these young kids," said Konishi.
Finding recruits for the coming season is important, but laying the recruiting foundation for 2003 is crucial. As many as a dozen Rainbows will leave the program after the 2002 season due to graduation or being selected in the draft.
Three weeks into his new job, Konishi figures he will watch 6-8 tournaments culminating with the Area Code Games before returning to Hawaii for good.
"My family wonders why I don't call, but these tournaments start at 9 a.m. and some don't finish until 11 p.m. All I want do is get back to the hotel, shower and go to bed," Konishi said.
"There's a lot of 'no's' and very few 'yes's' (during recruiting) at times, but the response has been great from the contacts I've made so far. The big question is can the kids survive away from home in the middle of the Pacific.''
Konishi, who earned his Master's Degree in Sports and Fitness Management at USF in 1997, survived 12 years on the mainland and should be able to relate to that concern.
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
