IRVINE, Calif. — In an informal poll of Hawaii men’s volleyball players, the most competitive person for the second-ranked Rainbow Warriors is a coach.
“Do you mean a player or a coach? Either? Charlie.”
Only Louis Sakanoko, unsurprisingly, picked himself with his first answer before thinking a little longer.
“I’d say me honestly, I hate losing,” Sakanoko started. “But I’ll say Charlie first. If you count everyone the same, it’s Charlie.”
That certainly was the case Wednesday afternoon as the team took time after practice to enjoy themselves ahead of Friday’s semifinal in the Outrigger Big West Men’s Volleyball Championship against the winner of today’s match between No. 5 seed UC San Diego and fourth-seeded UC Santa Barbara at Bren Events Center.
The team spent over an hour at Boomers, an entertainment venue, including a theme park, batting cages, an arcade, and most importantly, go-karts.
When it was time to leave for dinner at junior Kai Taylor’s house, a roughly 10-minute drive from the venue, all of the players were ready to go.
Head coach Charlie Wade and associate coach Kupono Fey were still speeding around the track.
Sakanoko, who finally gave up when Wade asked him to go again for a fourth consecutive run, was long gone when the two coaches finally got off the track during the middle of a race.
Charlie Wade’s competitive nature goes all the way back to when he was a child growing up in the Midwest.
It has continued as a father of three sons and a head volleyball coach, first at Pacific for three seasons for the women’s team, and then at UH, where he is now the winningest coach in program history with 345 in his 17th season.
“I hope it’s infectious, right?” Wade said before he boarded the bus. “I mean, look, I never let my kids win in anything. Whether it was cards or Monopoly or baseball, kickball, bowling, whatever, that’s how it’s always been and that’s how I was raised. We compete. If you’re good enough to win, you win. If you’re not, you’re not.”
That mentality is a big part of the DNA that makes up this Rainbow Warriors volleyball team gunning for its fourth conference title in the last five seasons.
Hawaii has won more Big West championships (four) than the rest of the league (three) since the conference started playing men’s volleyball in 2018.
Three of those four wins came in Hawaii at the Stan Sheriff Center. The only one secured on the road was here at the same arena of this week’s tournament in 2022, when UH went on to win a second consecutive national championship.
That remains the ultimate goal for this year’s team that put a conference-best five players on the All-Big West first team on Wednesday.
Setter Tread Rosenthal was joined by libero Quintin Greenidge and all three starting pin hitters, including sophomores Kristian Titriyski at opposite and Adrien Roure at opposite who made it for the second time.
Roure, who was one of the first players in the batting cage, struggled to hit a single ball, but kept going back in as Wade gave him some pointers, including to keep his weight on his back foot.
“I’d say I have the better improvement of the day because I had never swung before,” Roure said.
“I’d say Adrien might have the worst swing,” Greenidge joked standing next to Roure.