In the span of one year, Tyler Tsukazaki’s world transformed.

The former Maryknoll basketball standout became a first-time dad. Now, he is also the girls varsity basketball coach at Kalani.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity. I’ve always viewed Kalani as a place where I was able to work on my game growing up,” he said.

On Sundays, Tsukazaki attended Kalakaua Clinic, then went to plyometric training workouts at Kalani.

“That was crucial for my development,” he noted.

Kalani has been a player in the postseason in recent years, but dropped to 4-6 in the OIA East last season. The Lady Falcons lost to Radford 47-23 in the opening round of the Division I playoffs.

Kalani won the OIA D-II title in 2017, and then took the D-I league crown in ’18. Prior to that, the Lady Falcons captured D-II titles in ’05 and ’06 under Darold Imanaka.

Justice Sueing became Kalani’s coach in 2019. Tsukazaki has been an assistant coach on the Maryknoll boys basketball staff in recent years. He played at Lewis & Clark College.

The current Lady Falcons have been busy with leagues and workouts.

“We’ve got a good group of high-character, respectful girls that are willing to learn. We have a really young team and one of our key returnees, Kristi Yasukochi, is recovering from an ACL tear. We hope to have her this season,” Tsukazaki said. “All of my coaches and I have great memories playing team sports and our vision is that we hope to create special memories for the girls while using basketball to teach life skills.”

He has support from his wife, Holly Saito, a former standout hoopster from St. Andrew’s.

Former Kalani and La Pietra basketball standout Courtney Gaddis is also on Tsukazaki’s coaching staff.