Volleyball club combines kills with community

It was no great surprise when Talbot and Aleka Kahakai’s girls each showed indications of superior athletic ability.

Fifteen-year-old Savanah and 10-year-old Siryah Kahakai certainly had genetics on their side.

Talbot was a standout running back at Farrington High School.

Aleka played volleyball at a two-year college and was on track to join the University of Hawaii at Hilo squad when she became pregnant with Savanah.

But in choosing the right volleyball club for the girls, Aleka Kahakai said her criteria went far beyond what the club could do for her daughters’ on-court abilities.

"Polynesians sometimes lack in the classroom," Kahakai said. "I don’t want my children to just be known as good athletes. I want them to be well rounded."

For the Kahakais, then, Ka Ulukoa made fine sense.

In just five years the nonprofit organization has established itself as one of the state’s premier traveling clubs, providing high-level volleyball instruction and garnering some six national championships in Amateur Athletic Union and USA Volleyball Junior National competition. Just as important, parents say, the club has made good on its promise to balance intensive volleyball training with equally rigorous academic and community service requirements.

Players are required to maintain a 2.75 grade-point average, considerably higher than the Oahu Interscholastic Association’s 2.0 requirement for participation in prep sports. Last year the average GPA for Ka Ulukoa players was 3.23.

Players are also required, depending on their age, to perform a minimum number of hours of community service each season. Last season, 130 players volunteered approximately 1,600 hours of service to homeless shelters, senior programs, environmental organizations and other causes.

"We’ve all worked for different clubs around the state, and we all went our own way for different reasons," director Lee Lamb said of Ka Ulukoa’s small core of coaches and administrators. "We knew that if we wanted to get a foothold, we would have to do something no one else is doing. We wanted to go as high-level as possible and put the most competitive teams together. But we also wanted to make youth development a priority. We wanted to use volleyball as a vehicle for helping kids become good students and good citizens."

Lamb says the club is in a better position than ever to do that — thanks to its new semipermanent home in the former Word of Life gym on Auahi Street. Ka Ulukoa is believed to be the only volleyball club on the island with its own facility — a decided advantage for recruiting, scheduling and other concerns.

THE CLUB owes its good fortune in large part to Kamehameha Schools, which owns the lot. Due in part to the club’s commitment to community service — including its stated intention to do charitable outreach in its new neighborhood — the club was able to negotiate its lease of the 10,500-square-foot space to just a fraction of the $10,000-plus per month that had been advertised.

Although the area is slated for eventual development, Lamb said it is likely that the club will be able to retain the space beyond its initial one-year lease. The club also struck a deal to purchase leftover equipment from Word of Life.

Coach Chelsey Dawson said the club hopes to do service work for homeless people in the area and perhaps open its doors for clinics or play days for neighborhood youth.

Over the last couple of months, club administrators, coaches, parents and supporters have been chipping in to build three volleyball courts and two floors of office space.

"There’s no way we could do this without everybody pitching in," Lamb said.

Lamb said the gym will put to an end, at least temporarily, the Bedouin life so familiar to local volleyball clubs. In recent seasons the club has cobbled together practice time at gyms in Salt Lake, Palolo and Palama as well as Kawaiaha‘o Church and Kalani High School.

"I’m really excited," said coach Tanya Fuamatu-Anderson, a former National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics player of the year and longtime Chaminade assistant coach. "This gives our club so much flexibility with regard to time. We can bring in kids for individual training and provide a space for them to rest and study. It provides a safe place for them to come."

Fuamatu-Anderson, an American Volleyball Coaches Association all-American and professional beach volleyball player, said she hadn’t intended to coach at the club level, but found the opportunity to help shape the lives of young women too important to pass up.

"As athletes they understand concepts like desire and commitment, but at their age discipline is a fundamental problem," she said. "As coaches part of our responsibility is to help shape their character, whether it be how they behave on Facebook, their choice of words, who they choose as friends. I’m not here to be their mom, but I try to encourage them to follow the right path. To be able to leave a fingerprint on a child’s life is huge, and the feeling you get at the end of the season, when you see how much they’ve grown, is priceless."

Despite what Lamb calls "minimal" markup, club membership isn’t cheap. On age 15-and-older teams, the sum for equipment, uniforms, USA Volleyball and AAU registration, tournaments, travel and other expenses tops $3,500 per player per season.

The club does what it can to defray expenses with a large annual fundraiser, as well as individual fundraising efforts organized by each age-group team. In recent seasons the club has sold chili, cookies and plate lunches, sponsored serve-athons and held car washes. Dawson said the new facility will allow it to expand its fundraising efforts.

Former rugby player James Blake and his wife, Bonnie, who played volleyball at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, are well aware of the sacrifices families make to be a part of the volleyball club life. Daughter Elizabeth was a product of the club ranks and now plays for the University of Hawaii. Another daughter, Rachel, played for Ka Ulukoa last year.

"The club is very organized, they’ve got a good group of coaches and they’re very competitive," said James Blake. "But it is a big sacrifice for the family to make. We have to give up other entertainment to save for it. We live in Laie, and I don’t even want to know what our gas bill is."

Savanah Kahakai, now in her third year with the club, says the high-demand, high-reward nature of the club has helped her see her potential. She makes it a point to finish her homework before the start of practice ("the coaches tell us don’t start until we’re done"), and she’s contributed numerous service hours volunteering with Meals on Wheels and working at Mayor Wright Homes.

"Yeah, it’s hard," she said, "but I like that it’s more than just volleyball. We have a chance to give back, too."