JENNY TERAI PHOTO Jenny Terai :UH volleyball super fan has attended 141 home matches in a row
1 /2 JENNY TERAI PHOTO Jenny Terai :
UH volleyball super fan has attended 141 home matches in a row GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM The “Rubber Man ” Alan Hackbarth, who started out as a UH football player in 1996 but turned into an arena entertainer for volleyball fans, was back in action Friday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
2 /2 GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM The “Rubber Man ” Alan Hackbarth, who started out as a UH football player in 1996 but turned into an arena entertainer for volleyball fans, was back in action Friday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
JENNY TERAI PHOTO Jenny Terai :UH volleyball super fan has attended 141 home matches in a row
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM The “Rubber Man ” Alan Hackbarth, who started out as a UH football player in 1996 but turned into an arena entertainer for volleyball fans, was back in action Friday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
Every night is senior night for some University of Hawaii men’s volleyball fans.
They are in their 40s, 50s or 60s, and they remember what the homecourt was like at full capacity, 10, 000 strong, a decade before some of today’s players were born.
“I thought I was having a dream, ” said freshman Finn Kearney after Friday’s match against Long Beach State. “I never heard the place that loud before.”
Other people have.
There are two kinds of Warriors fanatics. Some know who the Rubber Man is, and some are just learning now.
“That’s perfect, ” Warriors super fan Jenny Terai said with a laugh. “That’s a good dividing line.”
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Terai was there the last time UH men’s volleyball sold out what was then called the Special Events Arena for back-to-back matches, in 1996. And she was there Friday and Saturday at what is now called SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
So was Alan Hackbarth—the aforementioned Rubber Man—who appeared on the DanceCam on Friday, and was a regular fixture as timeout entertainment when the Warriors did everything but win a national championship in the 1990s. That—make that, those—would come later.
“It was great to see him again, ” Terai said. “Yeah, I was one of those crazy young girls. It was so much fun, the greatest time of my life. My parents let me skip school.”
Why would she have to play hooky for a night game ? Well, in the mid-1990s Terai was a student at Hilo High School. Fortunately, relatives on this island enjoyed the sport, too. So her parents let her fly to Oahu and stay with her grandparents in Pacific Palisades, Yaeko and Seijiro Shiroma. Sometimes they would join Terai and her aunt, June Cabbab, at the matches.
Back then, the biggest UH star was Yuval Katz, but there were plenty of others. Imagine an entire team of guys nearly as popular as Colt Brennan. Players had to be wheeled out of the arena hidden in laundry bins long after matches had ended.
I referred to the crowd as 10, 000 Maniacs back then, which I guess is OK, since coach Mike Wilton called the SEA the Special Events Asylum.
His son, Aaron Wilton, was one of Terai’s favorite players.
“I was always about love for the game, ” said Terai, who pitched and played second base on the Hilo High softball team, and played club volleyball. “Definitely a bonus that the guys were cute, and a big bonus that they’re cute every year. I had the biggest crush on ...
