HILO — Nothing of value can come from a team that doesn’t take seriously what it means to be a team. When certain players don’t talk to or even recognize each other, you aren’t really even a team.
Nick Rolovich remembers coming to the University of Hawaii in 1999, the year after the Rainbows went 0-12 in the last season for coach Fred VonAppen.
“Guys were talking about not knowing bunches of players on the team, how rough it was just going to class and feeling like you’ve let everyone down,” Rolovich, the first year UH head coach said Thursday at a talk story session at Couqi’s Hideaway. “When things like that happen, you really don’t have a chance as a team, you are beaten before you play the game.”
The next season, the first for Rolovich and then first-year head coach June Jones exemplified the difference in a team getting along. The Rainbows won the conference and tied a mark for the biggest turnaround in one season in NCAA history.
It’s no surprise Rolovich prioritizes the emphasis on team, and he’s been doing it since he started, following the dismissal of Norm Chow, who chose not to retain Rolovich on the coaching staff when he switched from the Run and Shoot to a run-based Pro-style offense that turned out to be disastrous. Chow went 10-36 before being released, living through the ignominy of hearing home fans boo his wearisome offense.
Rolovich intends to return the ‘Bows to the days of wide open football but he first realized he needed to pull the team together. He’s been doing that in a variety of ways, starting with making sure everyone knows everyone, that they all look for “Aloha opportunities,” which might be in the form of opening a door for someone, looking people in the eyes, with a smile and a kind word, running practice without coaches during the summer when the NCAA makes coaches keep their distance.
Earlier this week, Rolovich said UH men’s volleyball coach Charlie Wade stopped him for a quick word on campus.
“He just wanted to say that he noticed a big difference,” Rolovich said, “Coach Wade said he has seen football players on campus saying hello to people, making eye contact, engaging other students and teachers; he said he hasn’t seen that in years and wanted me to know.”
Yes, it’s small thing, but it’s an integral small thing. A spark plug isn’t a big thing, but toss one away and see how well your car runs without it.
There’s nothing Rolovich can, or should say about how good his team might be in 2016, but it’s at least feasible there might be an improvement over the last few years when a dark cloud seemed to hang over them wherever they went.
Part of pulling together sometimes mean you have to let go and that happened when defensive lineman Kennedy Tulimasealii was dismissed from the team after being arrested and charged with resisting arrest, harassment and two counts of assault in the third degree. He was also charged with a separate criminal property damage offense in connection with another incident. Tulimasealii pleaded no contest to the charges, which amounted to grounds for dismissal under the university’s behavior code.
Without question, Tulimasealii was the team’s top returning player, an all-conference selection a year ago and safe bet for a comfortable spot in next spring’s NFL draft.
For a coach looking for a team of unselfish players that understand the collective group is more important than any one individual, losing the best player sent a message he would rather have not had to deliver, but there’s still a point to be made.
“I listened to a lot of people who were important to me in my career as a player or as a coach,” Rolovich said, “and when I talked to Dick Tomey (former UH, Arizona and San Jose State head coach and assistant under Greg McMackin at UH), he said his best advice was, ‘Don’t bend in a certain direction for your best player, never miss an opportunity to discipline your best player because everyone sees it — everyone.’
“That’s not what I came here for,” Rolovich said, “but I certainly got the message and for as much as we will miss Tuli, I think our team has a better understanding of what team means now.”
Rolovich pointed out domestic violence was a serious issue before the Tulimasealii incident, and it will remain that way.
“We have a process people (in legal trouble) go through,” he said, “and I can’t make my own set of rules, but if you strike a woman, if you rape somebody? It’s going to be a very short conversation and you’ll be elsewhere pretty soon.”
As of Friday, there were 16 days until the start of fall camp, followed by an arduous beginning to the season filled with travel and strong opponents. How to get a grasp for the potential with redshirt senior quarterback Ikaika Woolsey — offered his only college scholarship out of high school by Rolovich when he was an assistant — backed up by a handful of freshmen who have never played and a defense missing its best player?
The other day when players were running practice, Rolovich wondered if they were enjoying it or just going through the motions. When it ended at the mandatory time, the team gathered in a huge circle, players were speaking out, they cheered, broke the circle and chased each other around the field, laughing and joking like kids at the beach.
Anybody’s guess how good they might be, but it looks like they might be a unified team, something they haven’t had in Manoa for a few years.
It’s a good place to start.
