CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Diana Jessie Nunn, Mahina Eleneki Hugo, Jamie Paet Apo, Karrie Trieschman Poppinga, Suzanne Eagye Cox, Tita Ahuna and Dede Dunstone Angel played on the 1987 title team.

UH Circle
of Honor
grows

A two-sport star and women’s
volleyball champs are inducted

It was a group that never gave up. One that never gave up hope that it would be good ... good enough to win a national championship.

The Hawaii women's volleyball team of 1987 -- led by four very determined seniors -- did just that, defeating Stanford for the NCAA title. These Rainbow Wahine represent the fourth -- and last -- banner that hangs in the Stan Sheriff Center.

Tonight, their plaque will be unveiled on the inner concourse of the arena as one of two inductees into the UH Sports Circle of Honor. They will be joined by Solomon "Sol" Kaulukukui, a four-year letterman in both football and baseball in the 1940s, for the halftime ceremony during the Hawaii-Rice men's basketball game.

The Class of 2004 was feted yesterday at a luncheon at the Bank of Hawaii, the circle's primary sponsor. The group included the four seniors from the title team -- Tita Ahuna, Mahina Eleneki Hugo, Suzanne Eagye Cox and Diana Jessie Nunn -- as well as coaches Dave Shoji and Dean Nowack, players Jaime Paet Apo, Karrie Trieschman Poppinga and Dede Dunstone Angel, and trainer Melody Toth.

Toth introduced the team by recalling the key match of the 1987 campaign: the regional championship victory over Pacific in a packed, steamy Klum Gym. The vivid condensed play-by-play account took the audience back to that Dec. 11 night when the Wahine's return to the final four was capped by Eagye's match-ending block.

"I am tired and sweaty after that, Mel," Ahuna said when accepting the plaque on behalf of her teammates. "It was a great four years and I love my teammates to this day. We appreciate the honor."

The 1987 team is the last of the four Wahine championship squads to be inducted into the Sports Circle of Honor.

"I knew that eventually they'd go down the timeline and get to us," said Jessie Nunn, who works for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in New Jersey. "And as long as UH didn't win another, we wouldn't be totally forgotten."

The Wahine have come close since then, with final-four appearances in 1988, '96, 2000, '02 and '03. This year's team was unbeaten until falling in the regional semifinal.

"When's the next one? That's a good question," said Shoji, who is still the Rainbow Wahine coach. "It does seem like a long time ago, almost 20 years.

"What made that team special was the four seniors. They were pretty average for a long time, and couldn't get over the hump during those middle years. And UOP was a pretty big hump.

"Back then, everything was regional and we had to beat UOP to get to the final four. They never did until the end."

"I think that if you move away, it would seem a while ago," said Nowack, the distributor for Callaway golf clubs in Hawaii. "But if you live here, go to the arena, see the banners, you're always around it. Then, it doesn't seem so long ago.

"What was special about the team was we had walk-ons and not the top recruits in the country. They (the seniors) weren't the best coming in, but they wanted to be the best going out."

That team had four All-Americans on it in Ahuna, Jessie, Eagye and Teee Williams, who was also the national Player of the Year. Williams, who lives in Germany, and setter Martina Cincerova, living in Czechoslovakia, were unable to attend the induction.

"When I walked in the door and saw everyone, the memories all come flooding back and it doesn't seem that long ago," said Eagye Cox, a self-described country wife with four children living outside of Nashville. "When I'm not here, it seems like a lifetime ago. No one really knows this side of me in Tennessee."

For Kaulukukui, it was a reconnecting with the university as well as with his older brother Tommy. Tommy Kaulukukui, former All-American quarterback, five-sport letterman and football coach for UH, was a charter member of the first class in 1982.

Sol Kaulukukui captained both the football and baseball teams as a senior. As a catcher, he went on to play semipro baseball before a career in the National Guard, where he retired after 20 years with the rank of colonel.

Kaulukukui was also a coach and an educator, starting a Hawaiian studies program in Honolulu district elementary schools in 1981, a program that has expanded statewide. These days, he plays golf and travels with Margaret, his wife of 50 years.

"And with nine grandchildren, eight of them boys, all playing sports, I spend a lot of time at their games," Kaulukukui said. "I'm just a fan these days.

"I'm truly honored and humbled by this, to be placed alongside other great athletes and community leaders."