As she watches her grandchildren this weekend, Marilyn Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano will also sneak a few peeks at the TV, where another one of her progeny will be performing.

That’s the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships in Gulf Shores, Ala., where the third-seeded University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine (35-3) are one of eight teams competing for the national title (Friday-Sunday) on ESPN.

The event is a double source of pride for the retired UH athletics administrator who was a roll-up-the-sleeves driving force behind the advent of beach volleyball as an NCAA sport and in pushing for the Rainbow Wahine to be in the forefront of the movement that has taken them to the national championships five consecutive years (two in the American Volleyball Coaches Association, forerunner to the NCAA, and, now, all three NCAA tournaments).

“I feel a lot of satisfaction about both,” said Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano, who retired last June after 28 years at UH.

“College beach volleyball doesn’t happen without Marilyn working all the political angles, that is certain,” said AVCA executive director Kathy DeBoer in an email. “I had the vision but didn’t have the position (chair of the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics) or the authority to get anything done — that was Marilyn. Marilyn was more critical than me.”

The concept of beach volleyball as a full-fledged NCAA championship sport was little more than a glint in their eyes 10 years ago when they joined forces to begin the drive for NCAA recognition.

“I didn’t think it would happen like this, this fast and this big (76 schools) — that’s what makes it so wonderful,” Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano said.

Making it the 90th — and fastest growing — NCAA sport all in the space of a decade was a remarkable accomplishment given the maze that is official NCAA recognition and the necessity of selling it to a disparate array of members, both coastal and inland schools.

But Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano, a Rainbow Wahine volleyball player in the earliest days (1972-75) of the UH program, had seen first hand surprising things done with the sport and Title IX at Manoa.

The insight and vision came in handy in the circuitous NCAA process, especially at the 2010 NCAA Convention, where they had to wage a determined campaign to turn back an effort to override initial approval for a sport initially called “sand volleyball.”

UH was among the first signatories — 40 were needed — to gain initial consideration as a championship sport. “I have to give (then-UH athletic director) Jim Donovan credit. Our financial situation wasn’t the greatest, but he got behind it when it probably wasn’t the best budget decision, but he saw the (wisdom) in it for the opportunities for our women and our program,” Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano said.

This is the third NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship, and after finishing fourth (2016) and third (2017), “I feel like this is our year,” Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano said.

As competition begins Friday, Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano and DeBoer are often cited as its “grandmothers.”

“At the first NCAA championship banquet, Marilyn called me the ‘grandmother of beach volleyball’ and, then, she got up and retires to be with her grand-kids and I’m still working,” De Boer said. “How’s that fair?”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.