Faye's Birthday Party & UH Warrior Volleyball Senior Night, 2002

Feature Home || Men's Volleyball Team Photos || Pictures of April 13, 2002 || Signs of April 13, 2002

Birthdays are important to us at our small school in 'Aiea as they are as many places in the United States. However, I don't know of anywhere else in the United States where university volleyball players are considered celebrities! Every volleyball season, thousands of fans visit the Stan Sheriff Center at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa to watch Rainbow Wahine and Warrior Volleyball. With an average 7,139 spectators per game (or a total of 149,918 in the 1999 season), no one comes even close to Hawai‘i in volleyball match attendance! In fact, the University of Hawai‘i's closest competitor is the University of Nebraska, 71,577 total attendance in 1999 (3,767 person average per match). Of course, they don't even come close.

Not surprisingly, Hawai‘i's volleyball fans are very supportive of their heroes on the court. You can see proof of this at every season's senior night, where you'll experience volleyball fandom like none other.

Anyway, this site concentrates on senior night 2002, where Faye dragged me and a few others to watch the men's volleyball senior night. Faye, being the devoted volleyball fan she was, intended on watching them play, hoping for a win, then standing in line for three hours after the match just to get the entire team's autographs. This, of course, made all the girls happy. Us guys...um...well, we're guys. We just tagged along for the ride, slightly irritated with the girls' perhaps overly obsessive fandom, standing in line with nothing better to do than stare at the wall and read the "History of Wahine Sports" displays as the line moved along.

Such would be the case on this particular day. I, being a last minute shopper, went off to Pearlridge to buy Faye a purple volleyball. Then, a few hours later, Andrea and I met Faye, Steven, and Nicole at Pealridge mall, near the old Shirokiya (present Thisit0, near Macy's (formerly Liberty House) and McDonnald's (Andrea enjoyed her coffee). From the moment they showed up, Nicole rushed into Macy's to look at the clothing. But, Faye chased her back out (as well as Andrea) and we went to the bank to get money to buy things. While they were doing so, Andrea and Nicole rushed into JCPenny to look at clothes (again). Some things never change.

After buying several large pieces of posterboard at The Hobby Company, we went to Longs to buy markers and then went to Faye's house where we had about fifteen minutes to create giant UH signs (not much time, but somehow we managed). We had so little time, in fact, that Nicole forgot that she was supposed to throw a bunch of makeup onto Faye's face. Faye seemed happy about that... To see the major signs that we threw together for the game, click here...

After that, we jumped into the cars to go the Stan Sherif Center. After a long (and interesting) ride to to the center, we met up with Sheldon.

We went over to our seats and quickly tried to finish our still somewhat incomplete signs. Then the game started: Hawai‘i vs. BYU.

The previous Friday, Hawaii had swept BYU in front of a crowd of 5,502. This game would be a different story. We watched for about two hours as Hawai‘i and BYU battled it out in a thriller. In game one, no team ever led by more than two points and for a while it appeared that UH might win after a block by Delano Thomas seemed to seal UH's lead at 27-25. But then BYU rallied for five straight points, stealing the game at 27-30. Game two was almost the same, with UH falling 28-30. Finally, in game three, UH almost fell apart, making (it seemed) error after error. They fell 27-30.

Yet, senior night went on, despite the loss. Hawai‘i had one of the best volleyball teams in the nation and we knew it. The festivities included highlighting each senior's career and a video by KFVE (a local station) spotlighting their years in UH volleyball.

Then came the LONG LINE for autographs. We stood in line for three hours playing stupid games while waiting to catch up to the volleyball team. When we finally reached the players...well...they were all really nice and enthusiastic (except for one of them, but I think he was just sad because they lost their game). They sang happy birthday to Faye and gave us all autographs with a smile.

View pictures of my friends with the volleyball players

Feature Home || Men's Volleyball Team Photos || Pictures of April 13, 2002 || Signs of April 13, 2002

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