Head Coach Mike Wilton
In just four short years, Mike Wilton has transformed the University of
Hawai`i men's volleyball program from being just another sport, into a
big time, nationally competitive program.
"Our basic philosophy is number one to run a clean program, number
two to be as good as we possibly can and number three to have as many local
players on the team as possible," Wilton said. "But, we are never going
to sacrifice number two for number three."
Without sacrificing anything, Wilton has accomplished what most
coaches only dream of in a career. Wilton's teams made back-to-back NCAA
Final Four appearances in the last two years, including a shot at the
National Championship last year in Los Angeles.
He also won the schoolıs first conference title in 1995 and ended
last season with a 19-0 record in the Pacific Division of the Mountain
Pacific Sports Federation.
The winning tradition, combined with the building of the new Special
Events Arena, has made men's volleyball one of the hottest commodities in
the state. Last year, Wilton's program set a new NCAA volleyball
attendance record of 137,344 in 18 home matches, including a total of five
sellouts of 10,225.
"My first two years here, we played in Klum Gym," Wilton said. "The
following year in the arena we averaged about 5,000 and last year we grew
to almost 7,800 per match. I think itıs a unique situation because a large
portion of the population here plays volleyball and are volleyball-smart.
It's almost a cultural thing," Wilton said.
The success of Wiltonıs program didnıt happen overnight. Being
a man of discipline, it required a serious commitment to be on Wilton's
roster.
"We inherited a very senior-latent squad," Wilton said. "What we
instilled from the outset was a little shock to their system, but most of
them responded to it well."
Once the players get past the initial shock, Wilton hopes they leave
the program with more than just volleyball skills.
"I hope they leave believing that the coaching staff did the very best
they could for them," Wilton said. "We expect a lot from our players.
We expect they be the best players, students and people. We also expect them
to be good role models. They need to realize that regardless of what
Charles Barkley says, you have no choice. They are role models and can
choose to either be a good one or a bad one. We try to teach them how to
be good ones."
Wilton takes great pride in getting his players to become good role
models. He has his own philosophy about people, discipline and life in
general.
"I think people are like kites," Wilton said. "The strings represent
the rules and discipline in our lives. A kite can soar when there's rules
and when there's discipline, but without the strings, it ends up crashing."
He also served as womenıs coach at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo for 11
years and posted a 317-129 record.
He was named MPSF Coach-of-the-Year in 1995. While coaching the women
at Cal Poly-SLO, Wilton was named Big West Conference Coach-of-the-Year
twice.
As a player, Wilton competed at BYU-Hawai`i from 1969-72 when the
school was called the "church college." His daughter, Jenny, earned
Second Team all-Big West volleyball honors for Hawai`i's Dave Shoji. She
was also team captain of the 1995 team that finished 31-1.
He and his wife Ku`ulei have five children, Jenny, Aaron, Ewa, Mike
and Melissa.
