Hot in the Heartland

For the first time since the Stan Sheriff Center opened nearly 20 years ago, Hawaii did not leave behind volleyball’s largest crowds when it headed to Kansas for this week’s Shocker Classic.

Twelfth-ranked Nebraska now leads the country in attendance, averaging 8,178 in its first five matches at its new home — the 7,907-seat Bob Devaney Sports Center, which just underwent a $20 million renovation to make it smaller and more volleyball friendly. The seventh-ranked Rainbow Wahine drew an average of 7,621 (tickets issued) to their first nine home matches.

They have averaged more than 8,000 just once — in 1996, when current assistant coach Robyn Ah Mow-Santos and national player of the year Angelica Ljungquist were lifting Hawaii into its last NCAA Championship final. Their numbers have fallen below 7,000 the past six years.

UH coach Dave Shoji believes the No. 1 is relative.

"The fans in Hawaii are No. 1, everybody knows about our fans," he said the night he became his sport’s winningest coach. "Nebraska may break our record this year, but they don’t have fans like we do, trust me."

The Wahine have led the nation in attendance since moving into the SSC full-time in 1994, averaging more than 6,000 every year but one (2008). Nebraska has been second nearly every year, cramming about 4,000 devoted fans into the uncomfortable NU Coliseum, which is nearly 100 years old and had some of the worst sight lines in the sport.

Some years, the Huskers sold out their entire season in less than an hour. They carried a streak of 181 consecutive sellouts into the 2013 season, the longest in NCAA women’s athletics.

It now stands at 185, with about 8,200 season tickets sold before the Huskers hit a serve this year. There is a season-ticket waiting list of more than a thousand.

Reserved seats are $225 a pop for the season and standing room is $150. If single-match tickets open up — usually returned by visiting teams — they go for $15-17. A donation is required to buy seats, unless you are a student, faculty member, former player or planning on standing. There are also five suites, holding up to 70.

Those numbers — minus the suites — are similar to those of Hawaii, which is the only volleyball program in the country that makes money. Nebraska could come close, but Shoji says NU coach John Cook didn’t think it would happen.

"Their budget is definitely larger than ours," Shoji says. "They charter (planes), have a lot of resources. They spend way more than we do."

Nebraska’s loyal fans couldn’t care less. They can finally buy a ticket —at least most can — and accomplish something else at least as critical. Devaney has 15 restrooms. There were two at the Coliseum, so not only were thousands of fans shunned because of a too-small venue, but many more missed huge chunks of volleyball while waiting in line.

Nebraska’s basketball programs — Devaney’s former tenants — move into the new 15,000-seat Pinnacle Bank Arena this school year. Devaney could have been used for volleyball when it opened in 1976, but Cook and former coach Terry Pettit preferred the coziness of the Coliseum.

Shoji knew when Klum Gym’s time was up. "We needed to get out of Klum," he said. "It was not a great venue for volleyball. It’s a great venue for high school volleyball, but not college athletics as it is today."

The SSC is five times bigger (10,300 capacity) than Klum and the Wahine have sold it out 14 times in 19-plus seasons. They need to come close a bunch more times to catch the Huskers. With Big West matches the only sure thing left on the schedule (Wednesday’s exhibition against Toyota of Japan does not count), it is a long shot.

Still, Shoji has to smile.

"It’s great for volleyball that someone else can average, 6,000 or 8,000 every night," he says. "Leading the nation was nice, but we want to further the sport. If it’s only happening in Hawaii, it’s not great for the sport, it’s just great for Hawaii. I want to see it grow everywhere.

"There are pockets of places that are on the verge of drawing as well as us and Nebraska. Hopefully people around the country will see what we’re doing with Nebraska and strive to get there too."

The Wahine could see a few thousand Saturday when they face Wichita State. The Shockers (9-1) were seventh in the country in attendance last year, at 2,899. They have only lost to Arizona State, which just swept Texas. WSU went to its first Sweet 16 last year and starts the Missouri Valley season tonight, before UH (8-1) opens the Classic against South Dakota (9-3).

The Wahine take on 23rd-ranked Creighton (7-2) Friday.