When you do this job, sure, sometimes you root for teams or players. Sometimes it’s privately, sometimes you don’t care if the world knows.

But even more than that, you root for the story. You root for the great comeback, the win against all odds.

When we learned last December that Dave Shoji had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, I wrote that we shouldn’t expect the University of Hawaii’s iconic volleyball coach to retire … although that had been rumored already for years, anyway — but one of the reasons Shoji cited each year for coming back again was that he still enjoyed good health.

This time, however, health was not on the pro side of reasons to return.

Shoji, as usual, was careful with his words in that December statement and left a return for a 43rd season as a possibility. Or, maybe to me and some others, a probability — because that’s what we wanted to believe.

What a story, right? Legendary coach crushes cancer (which he does appear to be doing) and the Big West, leads Wahine to yet another great season.

When Shoji did retire, I realized I was just hoping for him to come back because I couldn’t imagine, or didn’t want to imagine, what the Hawaii sports world would be like without one of its few bastions of rock-hard stability, without one of the few things you could count upon: Dave Shoji leading a winning and often spectacular program.

Regardless whatever might be going bad, for 42 years, there was something very good going on at Klum Gym or the Stan Sheriff Center every fall. A winning team, without fail.

One of the things I appreciated most about Shoji was his loyalty to Hawaii. There were many times he could have left for another school for significantly more money. But money was never what he was about.

I think it says a lot that the coach who takes over the program is one of his former players, Robyn Ah Mow-Santos. None of us really knows how she’ll do as a first-time college head coach. But we do know this: She is invested, and she will have plenty of support.

Wahine volleyball is the sports team most symbolic of our state and our culture. When football coach Nick Rolovich preaches “Play Warrior, Live Aloha,” there’s a perfect example of it already on campus.

Of course, it wasn’t always perfect. And with standards set so high so early on, some fans got impatient for that fifth national championship banner. Sure, I’ll say it — they got spoiled. Finishing with more wins than losses every year wasn’t enough for critics (mostly of the online, anonymous variety), and there was talk of the game having passed him by.

But to his credit, Shoji did what so many veteran coaches struggle with — he adjusted his coaching style. He realized you can’t always talk to a student-athlete the same way you did 20 or 30 or 40 years ago and expect positive results.

That nagging feeling of not being respected, of being irrelevant, because we live on islands thousands of miles away from the rest of the country was often reinforced in recent years because of slights — real or imagined — having to do with the Wahine being sent away rather than being allowed to host NCAA tournament matches.

But Shoji and the team itself never made their supporters feel irrelevant. The Wahine were always a force with which to be reckoned. And they won with class and lost with dignity under Shoji. The fans could always be proud of them either way.

And they can be proud of themselves, too — the way they’ve kept filling the arena, the way they’ve supported the home team but also acknowledged good play by the visitors.

I asked Shoji about that a few years ago, why volleyball fans can be so fervent, yet so appreciative of opponents.

“Those of us in it a long time come from it being a cult sport. When I started it was a small community that stuck together,” he said. “People love the game more than they love winning. It’s become more competitive as it has grown nationally, but there’s still somewhat of a closeness.”

And that’s why what Dave Shoji built has a chance to last forever, why his gift to an entire state can endure even without him as the coach.

He did much more than win volleyball games. He built a program that can be sustained.

He built something so solid and so easy to get behind.

Something both respected and beloved, like the man himself.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.