 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori and this is Beyond the Lines. We are broadcasting live at the Pioneer Plaza in the beautiful Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in downtown Honolulu. This show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, and building winning teams. My special guest today is a fantastic example of all of this. He is the winningest college volleyball coach in U.S. history and the legendary long-time head coach of our University of Hawaii women's volleyball team. He is Coach Dave Shoji and today we are going beyond volleyball. Coach Dave. Thank you, Rusty. That was quite an introduction. Well, I have to say, Coach Dave, that you've been an inspiration to me for a long, long time. I mean, long time. So I'm so thrilled to have you on the show today. Well, thanks for having me on. I'm happy to be here. Now, I want to ask you... We go way back. Oh, no, you're going to mention that? Yeah. Okay. I want to ask you about your background, where you grew up at. I grew up in Hawaii. I wasn't born here because you asked me that I was born in California and moved here when my dad moved here to teach at the University of Hawaii when I was three. So I grew up here, but I had to go back to high school on the mainland because of circumstances and then went to Santa Barbara. You see Santa Barbara and then moved back here after that. Now, what sports did you end up playing before getting into volleyball? Well, when I was a kid, I played all the sport. I played football, basketball, baseball, whatever there was I was playing. Whatever season it was, we played. So I've got a pretty wide variety of background in sports. And then when you went to Santa Barbara, you went there on a baseball scholarship? I did. Wow. I went there on a baseball scholarship. After one year, I decided I wasn't going to make the varsity. I wasn't going to be a real impact player. I wasn't very strong and didn't have a great arm. So basically I gave it up and just was a student for a few years. Geez. And so when did you start volleyball? I started fooling around with volleyball because my roommate played a little bit and we would go to the beach and we would play some games on the weekend. And then it took volleyball class. And then the actual instructor was Dennis Berg, who is today my close friend. Wow. He's got a couple of famous daughters too, but anyway, he asked me to come out for the team. He said, hey, just come out, try out, see how you do. I think you can do well. And I did. And then I guess the rest is history. So you played college volleyball like for three years then? I did. My third year in school, fourth year and fifth year. I see. Yeah, it wasn't like it is now. It was really a kind of a cult sport, I would say. We had some really amazing characters on our team. And we didn't train very seriously, but we love the sport. We love the game and we would play every chance we got. Nice. And then your family, you have an amazing family, Coach Dave. I know your wife, Mary, Kovica, Eric, Kobe. Eric is my state doubles champion for our Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis team. What are they all doing now? Well, Kobe's married. She played volleyball in college. She went to the University of Michigan, but she's married to a football coach now, which has been very exciting for her. And she's got two kids. And so we have two grandchildren. Nice. If her husband coaches at the University of Southern, I'm sorry to say that, South Carolina. Oh, yeah. The Gamecocks. Gamecocks. Very exciting. We've been really involved in watching their games. And then Kovica, our oldest son, he's in Poland now. He's been a pro volleyball player, Olympic player for eight years now. And Eric, our other son, is in Russia playing professional volleyball in Russia right now. And if people don't know, your two sons are USA Olympians, bronze medalists. Yeah, they are. Must be the Jeans, huh? Well, I don't think it's the Jeans because I'm not particularly athletic. I mean, they're not the most athletic two kids. And to make the Olympic team, there was a lot of luck involved. But basically, they knew a lot about volleyball. They grew up in the gym. They grew up at our practices. And so it was just natural. They were around it all the time. And I think that had a lot to do with them making the Olympic team, because certainly, physically, they weren't the most gifted players. So the mindset, I mean, they're just the internal climate. I mean, they're just awesome with that. Well, you know, we talk about volleyball IQ, and they certainly have volleyball IQ just based on being in the gym, watching every single match of ours. And when there were three or five, you know, they were in the gym watching games. So I think that's why they're such good volleyball players. So Coach Dave, when did you start coaching? I started after I graduated from UCSB, and I did a little stint in the Army, came home looking for something to do, and started at Kalani High School. Wow. Coach in the Varsity, 1972. Okay. Wow. Yeah. And then what, you also became an assistant coach at Punahou School as well? I was taking some side kind of coaching jobs in and up at Punahou, coaching JV, volleyball, JV, basketball. Geez. And so that was the same time I was doing kind of Kalani, and so it all kind of started back in the early 70s. Yeah. And then so how did the UH volleyball situation evolve? They had a team in 1974. Alan Kang was a coach, and it played strictly a club kind of schedule. It wasn't a very big thing. They started to have scholarships, but Alan couldn't do it the second year. They asked me to do it. In fact, Chris McLaughlin and his wife, Beth, were involved in the team. Yeah. And I was kind of hanging around, and they asked me to do it temporarily, and so I said yes, and the rest is kind of history. Temporarily, yeah. Now were you also a coach of the men's volleyball team, or were you always the coach for the women's? No, I did the men from 1978, I think, to 82, four years, and I was doing both the men and women, and that was really exciting, and got the program started, and today they could win a national championship this year. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. I never knew that you coached the men as well during those four years. So Coach Dave, you're the head coach for 42 years. You won four national championships. Why are you successful? Why was I successful? Why are you successful? Well, a lot of it was, I guess, luck. A lot of it was luck. Everything kind of fell into place for us. We were always pretty close, 75, 76, 77, we were always top three, and at the time it was kind of a West Coast sport. Yeah. We had to beat Long Beach and UCLA and USC, but it wasn't the sport it is today, but it was quite competitive, and people asked me about that, but the main thing was that we recruited one superstar from the mainland, and that was Diane Sebastian in 1977, and so she was our big star. I think you have to have a superstar to win the national championship, and then filled around her with good local players. Yeah. We had great local players, Angie Andrade, Diana McInerney, or some of them, and Cheryl Grimm was on the team in 1979. That was kind of the key, and back then we were basically a defensive team, you know, Hawaiian kids running around, digging balls and keeping the ball alive, and we had better ball control than anybody else. Same thing, 82 and 83, we had Deetra Collins. Oh, yeah. She was the superstar, filled in with really good volleyball players around her. 87 when we won, Suzanne Agie was the big star, and Tito Huna and Mahine Elaneki, local kids filled around them, so that was kind of the key to our championships. So, Coach Dave, what is your team culture of excellence? I mean, every CEO, every head coach, they have a culture of excellence that they try to implement. What was yours? Well, back then it was, and pretty much throughout my career, it's all about technique, you know, how to pass and how to set and how to block, and most of our practices were just technique. We would go 20 minute blocks kind of thing, where you work on just blocking. You know, no six on six, it was just, you know, footwork, technique. And so I think that that's where our players got better. Technically, I think they were better than most of the teams that we played. A lot of teams were better maybe physically, but we, I thought we were better technically. So we would, I think, 60% of our practices were just technique. Sure, we had the ball ball, but there was no six on six kind of thing. And I think that's where I was good at. I was a good teacher. I felt that was what I liked to do. I liked to break it down and our players got better by doing that. Yeah, so the fundamentals, the foundations physically was just rock solid? Well, I think it got to be rock solid. You could see players develop over the years, like a Suzanne Agee, and all of our players got better because they just worked on technique all the time. At the end, you know, they were very good volleyball players. So how much of the mental part did you focus on? I mean, the mindset, the internal climate, when did that all, how did you do that? Well, it came to the forefront a little later in my career. You know, we started to incorporate, you know, a team psychology doctor kind of thing we bring in people. In fact, Chris McLaughlin, who you knew very well, worked with our team. We had other people work with the team on the mental aspect of the game. They were experts at it. I wasn't an expert at it, so I did my own kind of thing, but I left it up to the people that had more education in that respect. So that became very, very critical at the end because, as you know, working with women, it was difficult because they had to balance all these kinds of things in their life with not only school, but just personal life and then have a big obligation with me in the volleyball area. So that was a big hurdle, and I think we did very well in that area. So coach, as a coach, as a leader, what is your leadership style? It changed, Rusty. It changed over the years. Early, I think, I was, you know, take a lap, kind of, and coach. You messed up, take a lap, and the kids, they didn't know any better. They didn't respond negatively. They would just do it, and that changed. And that changed over the years where you had to be more of an encourager and more of, you know, come on, let's, we can do this. Rather than demean somebody, and that just doesn't work in this day and age, as you know. So I've had to, I did, I would say, change with the times, and I was more nurturing at the end. And Robin Amole, who I coached earlier in her career, said, I got soft. You got soft, eh? That's not the case, though. I mean, inside, I was still tough, but, and I wanted our players tough, but it was just a different way to approach things. Well, the greatest coaches, the greatest CEOs, I mean, they have vision. They can adjust, they can adapt, and that's exactly what you did. And coach, I want to ask you, how did you get your players to rise to the occasion, to have that peak performance level consistently? That's a tough question, Rusty. I think in just overall, if your team is prepared physically, and they know that they're capable of winning matches, and I think that's the start. If you didn't have the talent, and you weren't up to par physically with the other teams, then you're probably not going to win. But I think our teams were, I think they felt they were prepared physically, technically, mentally. And so I think our players always thought they were going to win. I think there was any doubt. They had no doubt they were going to win or win the majority of the games, and I think that maybe answers your question. Yeah, and you know what? And watching your games, I mean, you were a master of strategy and tactics and really handling the environment as well. That was very impressive. I want to ask you, coach, what is something that irritated you as a coach? I think what irritated me was not following the game plan and just kind of going off on your own. Well, the other five people are doing one thing, and then one player decides, well, I'm just going to do something else. I think I'm going to hit cross-court rather than hit line, because that's just what I want to do. That would kind of irritate me, because we talk about our strategy or game plan. And getting back to the other thing that you mentioned about me, but I think my involvement in sports in general, baseball, basketball, football, really helped me in volleyball. Because volleyball, you know, a lot of people can know about volleyball, but just to kind of see something that was going on in the court maybe wasn't necessarily related to volleyball, I think I had a really knack for, you know, when the substitute or this person's not doing well, but because of my overall background in sports. Yeah. You're just a great coach. A lot of good coaches. Coach Dave, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to continue going beyond volleyball. Great. You're watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my special guest, Coach Dave Shoji. We will be back in a quick minute. Hey, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii, and they won't let me do political commentary, so I'm stuck doing energy stuff, but I really like energy stuff, so I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime, at noon on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Yukari Kunisue, the host of Konnichiwa Hawaii, Japanese talk show on Think Tech Hawaii. Konnichiwa Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show. And it's streamed live on Think Tech at 2 p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. I'm Yukari Kunisue. Mahalo. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My special guest today is the winningest college volleyball coach in U.S. history and the legendary longtime head coach of our University of Hawaii women's volleyball team. He is the one and only Coach Dave Shoji and today we are going beyond volleyball. Coach Dave, through the years, what would you do as a coach to keep improving yourself? There are a lot of ways to do that. I think watching a lot of volleyball, nowadays I watch a lot of men's volleyball because my sons are playing overseas and so I would watch a lot of games and if you're a young coach, watch as many college games as you can, maybe some professional games just to see what the trends are with what people are doing, the games evolving all the time so I would try to stay up. Some people live in the past and this way is the only way. But the games evolving, every games evolving, look at basketball, three point shots prominent now back then you had to work it in and centers are big but now it's to guard. Anyway, I would look at a lot of games. The other ways to do it are go to clinics, learn from the best guys, look at where Russ Rose is speaking and maybe at a convention or something and try to pick their brains if you ever get a chance to talk to somebody but I would just watch games and see what the trends are. Knowledge is power for sure. In my book Beyond the Lines, Coach Dave, I talk about welcoming adversity and looking forward to challenges. How would you do that with your team to get them in the right mindset to look forward to these challenges? Well, I think you can always look at a loss. That's what we used to do. I mean we take a loss and that's where your weak points are brought out by the other team and so even though you hate to see, you lose on tape but I think that's the best way to go back and see what happened why you lost, what they exploited on you and then get better at it because the next guy is going to watch a film and say, hey, they aren't really strong in this area and then they'll exploit that so that's what we used to do is just, hey, we lost, let's find out the reason, let's go back, look at it, go back into the practice gym, work on those kind of skills. Maybe the next time out will be better. Yeah, you definitely learn a lot more through losses and when I coached your son, Eric, I mean he rarely lost. He's a tough doubles player. Well, he had a good partner in Alex Cheng, I'm sure. Alex Cheng and Eric, they were pretty dominant. It was fun to watch those guys. And the other thing that I should mention is that I love the dual sport or triple sport athlete. You know, Alex played golf and tennis and Eric played tennis and volleyball but I think nowadays the kids are two, one kind of sport. They get a lot of burnout, yeah? You see burnout in kids now because it's just too much. They started when they're 10 and they only play one sport and their muscles get broken down, they get hurt. Alex and Eric were multi-sport athletes. I think that's really good. They played basketball and golf and volleyball. So I really believe that Alex and Eric drew on the most other kinds of sports to win in tennis. No, I totally agree. Coach, what's an important lesson you've learned in your life so far? I've learned that nothing comes easy in the world at athletics. There's no shortcuts. If you take a shortcut, someone else is working harder and you're going to get beat. So I would say I just know that you can't cheat on any drill. You can't say if you had to do 10 reps in the weight room and you do 8 and you're not going to be the best person you can be. So I think that's the one thing that I've learned over the years in athletics anyway. Now you're so right because so many players, so many coaches, they're doing so much in terms of hard work and it's just whoever does more tend to have that little advantage. Well, a lot of people are natural athletes and they get by on that. Sometimes they think they can get by but like I said, if you get two equal people in athletic ability and one's working harder in the weight room and training and just living a better lifestyle, that person's going to win. Coach Dave, what's been your greatest obstacle that you've faced in your life that you have to overcome? In my life? In your life. Trying to marry my wife. What happened there? I didn't want to get rejected. You know, I've been really fortunate. I haven't had many obstacles. I mean, trying to win games is an obstacle but you know, looking back, I mean, you want a lot of games, so what, you know, kind of thing. I see relationships that you form that are more important, so I've been really fortunate that somebody said that, hey, you didn't work a day in your life. I kind of agree with that. Well, you worked a ton. Yeah, and we won and you know, we try to win every year but those are obstacles and recruiting is an obstacle. Things at UH were always obstacles in our way but it is nothing major or rusty. Okay, now I want to pick your brain about this. What do you feel the best leaders do? I think the best leaders, you know, they take charge. They're not afraid to ask questions. They're not afraid to go out on a limb. They might get criticized but you can't lead if you're afraid of something. You can't lead if you're not going to speak up. I think the coaches that are strong people and they won't take no for an answer in some cases are the best kind of leaders. Yeah, and the greatest leaders, they're never complacent. They're always, you know, taking calculated risks. What are your thoughts about risk? Well, I think you have to take risks. You know, the one thing I can look back, we had a player, Nicky Taylor, who 6'4", had a great arm and she could hit. At the time, the trend in women's volleyball was to take that big person because she didn't play great defense because she's so big and she didn't move well but that wasn't the case with Nicky. We let her play back row and then we started setting her in the back row. No one was doing this. The men were doing it but none of the women, because we always had these back row specialists and let's get a better, faster kid in there and take the big kid out. But we left her in and it became something that was a weapon for us. We started setting her in the back row. She played pretty good defense for someone at 6'4". So that was a risk that we took as a coaching staff and we almost made a final four with that particular system and no one else was doing that. Coach Dave, who was a coach that impacted you the most? Dennis Byrd was my first coach and Dennis Byrd as a daughter named Lindsey Byrd who played the three Olympics and you're going to have her on pretty soon. He was my inspiration. He was my PE teacher at Santa Barbara who said, you need to come out and try out for this team. So he was my first college coach in volleyball. So what did he do that was so good? Well, he was a fundamental kind of guy and we worked a lot on skills and so I think that's what influenced me most that later in my coaching career which was five or ten years later but he was one of those guys that we worked on skills and that's how I became a good volleyball player or a decent volleyball player because I would work on this and this but he was my first coach and through this day he's one of my best friends. So you're so loved by so many people in Hawaii and you're retired now for two years? Two seasons. So what are you doing right now in your retired life? I knew you were going to ask. I golf and I surf and I travel. That's just about it. I have a honey-do list in the afternoons and work around the yard and sometimes work on the house and things like that but basically I'm not doing much other than having fun. So what's something that you want to do in your life that you just haven't done yet? There's different parts of the world I'd like to visit. Like where? Well New Zealand is first and foremost I think my wife and I both that's maybe our next trip. But we're still following the boys we're still Eric's playing in Russia and I'd like to go to Russia Mary's been to Russia so we're still traveling. The secret desire for 2020 or 2020 is the Olympics whether Eric or Kofika could make the team again we're definitely going to be in Tokyo. So they're going to try for it? Oh yeah, they'll be on the US national team this summer and they'll just see how things go it's a tough business because you've got to keep beating out the next guy. Coach Dave, in my book I talk about a part where there's assistant coaches that become head coaches or assistant managers and they become general managers and they fail. Why does that happen? I'm not quite sure. I just talked to Mike Seely who was my assistant coach several years ago he's the head coach at UCLA I just talked to him this morning he still calls me boss even though he's won a national championship. I think people fail because they kind of go off in tangents I've had coaches that have coached for me maybe 10 years they go on and they completely change what they've been used to in the last 10 years I don't know why, now they're a head coach and maybe I've got to do this I think maybe they should maybe go back and see what was successful for not only me but other coaches and go from there but a lot of people when they get that head job well I'm going to do this man I've been waiting to do this and this is going to be awesome something that's tried and maybe it's not tested maybe I don't know maybe I think so that's good now before we wrap up coach Dave I want to ask you one more thing what one piece of advice would you give to younger coaches right now? I would say take care of the details a lot of young coaches want to be in the gym and obviously that's where the passion is in the gym coaching, dealing with players but there's so much more being a head coach and administratively you've got to take care of that stuff the details because that's what's going to bring you down eventually if you're not successful coach on the court on the field everybody can do that kind of thing but they're really good coaches so with the training room with the administration with the facilities those kinds of things are really really important coach Dave I love the insights and you're so right about the details and that's why you are the legend I appreciate you for being on Beyond the Line today thank you coach Dave you're welcome thanks for having me and thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with the training sponsor Eolani Incorporated for more information please visit my website RustyKomori.com and my book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all Costco stores in Hawaii I hope that coach Dave and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs Aloha