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Manoa Valley seemed to provide its own blessing upon the newest addition to Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium.
A shower drifted though the University of Hawaii’s lower campus during the dedication and unveiling of the softball program’s new locker room facility Tuesday morning.
UH coach Bob Coolen has weathered those mists countless times over three decades standing in the third-base coaches box and marveled at the transformation of the grounds since his arrival in 1990.
Standing in front of the new structure behind the first-base grandstands, Coolen — now in his 31st season as UH head coach — motioned toward the cinder-block shed that served as the original press box and is now a storage area.
“This equipment room is the last real remnant of the original 1985 stadium that was built by (inaugural UH coach) Alika Thompson back in the day when he started the program,” Coolen said. “I was fortunate to come in five years later and I’ve been here ever since and watched everything just grow and it’s been surreal.”
Officially designated “Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium Phase II,” the $4.5 million project includes a lounge area leading into the locker room, with the “H” logo featured in the center of the dark green carpeting, as well as an overhead light fixture.
Players walk past the showers and a spacious training area into the first-base dugout. Coolen said RWSS will be the only softball facility in the Big West Conference with such all-inclusive features.
“This facility is second to none in the Big West right now,” said Coolen, who will move his office from the main athletic complex to the RWSS addition along with assistants Dee Wisneski and Kaulana Gould, both former Rainbow Wahine players. “This is really going to give us a competitive edge.”
Some of the current Rainbow Wahine players got their first look inside the facility during Tuesday’s ceremony.
“It was unbelievable,” junior first baseman Dallas Millwood said. “It’s amazing seeing that this is something the State of Hawaii did for us. We feel very honored. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before, especially for a female sport.”
During his remarks, Coolen recalled chats with State Senator Brian Taniguchi as teammates on a makule league softball team in Manoa years back as they discussed what the program needed to compete with its peers on the continent.
“Usually I was sporting a sore hand because I had to warm him up when he was going to pitch,” Taniguchi said. “We just talked about his needs, so we tried to address them as much I could through the legislative budget.
“To go from just a concept of what it might be to actually see a building is really gratifying.”
Taniguchi said the program’s run to the Women’s College World Series helped generate support for the improvements at the stadium, which in recent years included new lighting and an artificial turf playing surface.
“This whole place is our home,” Millwood said. “Everything around it is home.”
The Rainbow Wahine (1-4) will make their home debut with an exhibition doubleheader with Chaminade on Friday. Their official home opener is set for Feb. 24 against Montana in the Outrigger Hawaii Invitational.
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