To whoever is concerned

I am very thankful for the opportunity to come here and play for one of the best programs
there are. But now that the men’s volleyball season is over and I am planning on leaving the islands soon I think it is necessary to inform the public about some deplorable facts concerning the last season and the situation in the men’s volleyball program. Coming back here for my second season I was hoping for another good season without the mistakes that had been made in 1998. It wouldn’t turn out that way.

Let me start off with the low point of my Rainbow career: the day when I quit the team. It was the week when we were going to play UOP on the road. Things weren’t going as well as we had all hoped for and everybody was really frustrated. Two recent losses on the road were seriously putting our play-off hopes in jeopardy. On Monday and Tuesday there were a couple of situations when players were called “chicken”, “stupid” and degraded in other ways. On Tuesday I got into a (verbal) fight with assistant coach Reyes about one of these incidents with some other player.

The next day, Mike Wilton asked to talk to me. That was only a few minutes before practice was going to start. He told me in a very serious manner that he decided to “relieve” me from captain’s duties so I could focus on only playing for the rest of the season. I was surprised by this decision and stunned by the way he was telling me about it. I would at least have expected him to call me to his office and to explain me his true intentions. I did not have to be relieved from captain’s duties in order to play well. Apparently he had other reasons to do what he did. With a disgusted look in his face Wilton then went on telling me that he was very disappointed with me this season. He reproached me for not giving my best. He also told me that I had quit inside and were not committed to the program. I was shocked. First of all, I knew it wasn’t true. Second, if this was his opinion he should communicate it in some other way. Soon later I learned that he had the same kind of conversation with Mason Kuo just before he talked to me. Until then we both served as team co-captains. When warm-up started he hadn’t told anyone else about his decision so I expected him to call a team meeting since changing captains is not something you just do uncommented. When he started warm-up without a meeting I became very angry and
asked him why he wouldn’t tell anyone else what he had just told me. I wanted to talk to the team. He replied that he would wait for players who were late because of classes. Still devastated I didn’t feel like I could practice so I told him I would wait till then. I sat down in total disbelief about what was going on. Then assistant coach Reyes started yelling at me. He told me to either