Editor’s note: June marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX. To commemorate this watershed event, the Star-Advertiser will publish a series of stories celebrating the achievements of female pioneers and leaders with Hawaii ties.

STORIES: June 23—Patsy Mink and Donnis Thompson. June 26—Clarissa Chun. June 28—Patsy Dung

Deitre Collins’s rise to becoming one of the most decorated players in University of Hawaii women’s volleyball history was perhaps improbable, but not unthinkable.

Collins, a 6-foot middle blocker from the Los Angeles area, signed to play at Hawaii without ever visiting the school. It was a weekend she saw the Rainbow Wahine play at UCLA during the team’s 1979 national championship season that led to her decision to sign.

“I really liked their demeanor on the floor,” the now Collins-Parker recalled about the Rainbow Wahine in a recent phone interview. “That literally was the deciding factor. I prayed about it, and it just felt right.”

On the other side, UH coach Dave Shoji recruited Collins off a VHS tape of her and conversations with her high school coaches. “Blown away by what (he) was seeing on tape,” Shoji ended up going to the offices next door to ask the UH basketball coaches for a second opinion.

“She was pretty impressive on tape,” he said Tuesday, noting her fast twitch and jumping ability. “Not necessarily volleyball ability, but her athletic ability definitely stood out.”

Collins had only played volleyball for about two and half years before entering college. A basketball player who also was a sprinter and long jumper in track and field, she received “intensive training” at an Olympic development program from Toshi Yoshida, a former volleyball player from Japan who went on to coach the United States women’s national volleyball team.

“A lot of the big colleges looked at her, but I think they thought she wasn’t quite ready for a high level,” Shoji said. “She’s probably 6-foot at the most but jumped really high and had a quick arm.”

Collins recalls not being a full-time starter her freshman season. Others described her as being a “raw” type of player.

“She could play, she could hit, but she learned how to work hard and be a team player,” former UH All-American Diane Sebastian said about Collins in an interview with the Honolulu Advertiser back in 2009. “She got to be a much better blocker and all-around player.”

After Collins’s freshman season ended, UH transitioned from the AIAW to the NCAA for the 1981 season. Off the court, it meant that Collins didn’t have to work like she did in the spring semester, when she worked at First Hawaiian Bank and later as a legislative aide to a state senator.

“It was crazy,” she said. “Seeing our scholarship change and what we were able to get, the way the tournament was set up, everything changed on how things were handled.”

On the court, Collins proceeded to develop into one of the top middle blockers in the country, being named an AVCA All-American in each of her next three seasons. She had 80 solo blocks in 1983 — still a UH single-season record — and remains in the program’s top 10 in kills per set, hitting percentage and total blocks.

“She was a very dynamic player. She got very excited playing,” Shoji said. “She really inspired a lot of her teammates by just her enthusiasm and love of the game, and she’s very talented as well.”

In addition to program records and All-America honors, she won the Broderick Cup for the 1982-83 academic year, the award for the nation’s top female collegiate athlete. Collins remains the only UH student-athlete to win it, although the individual hardware isn’t as meaningful to her as the team’s results.

“I didn’t play to win the Broderick Cup. I didn’t play to become an All-American. I played to help my team win,” she said. “As a result of that, I was blessed to get some accolades that could easily have gone to anybody on our team, because we were a great team.”

UH went 138-15 in Collins’s four years in Manoa, including 104-5 and two national championships over the first three years the program was playing in the NCAA. It was a group that was considered undersized for Division I but made up for it in other ways.

“We had a team that, on paper, shouldn’t have won,” Collins said. “We just had phenomenal chemistry, great volleyball skills, and more importantly, we just played together as a team.”

Collins went on to play professionally in Italy and France before injuries hampered the final stages of her professional career. When she retired from playing in the early 1990s, she took a position as an assistant coach at the University of Houston, where she had coached camps while playing professionally.

“During my time as a player, especially my time when I was injured on the Olympic team, I just really started to study the game differently,” she said. “I had to sit back and watch and evaluate, and I believe that’s where my coaching mind began.”

After one-year stints as an assistant at Northern Arizona and South Alabama, she went on to be the head coach at UNLV, Cornell and San Diego State. Collins, 60, has since retired from coaching and has been the director of volleyball at Legacy Sports USA, a sports park in Mesa, Ariz., since December. She oversees the club teams, tournaments, leagues and camps run by the park.

As for Hawaii, she still keeps up with Rainbow Wahine volleyball and says that she’ll be a “Wahine for life.”

“I’m always amazed that people of Hawaii still care to hear my name,” Collins said. “I definitely don’t take it for granted.”

—

Deitre Collins

University of Hawaii women’s volleyball player (1980-1983); UH women’s basketball player (1985)

>> Education: Antelope Valley High School (California), University of Hawaii

>> Highlights:

Three-time AVCA All-American (1981-1983)

Two-time NCAA champion (1982, 1983)

Broderick Cup winner (1982-83 academic year)

Two-time Broderick Award women’s volleyball honoree (1982-83, 1983-84 academic years)

AVCA Hall of Fame inductee (2008)

Member of 1988 U.S. Olympic Team

Head coach at UNLV, Cornell and San Diego State

Assistant coach at Houston, Northern Arizona, South Alabama, Coastal Carolina (associate HC)

June marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX. To commemorate this watershed event, the Star-Advertiser will publish a series of stories celebrating the achievements of female pioneers and leaders with Hawaii ties.

Click here to view the Title IX series.