There was nothing sad about the tears that welled up in Miliana Sylvester’s eyes as Hawaii Pono’i played prior to the start of Friday’s Rainbow Wahine volleyball season opener.
Adopted at age 7 and the third-oldest among 10 siblings, the Hawaii freshman isn’t rattled by much on a volleyball court.
The emotions that poured out just as she was about to hear her name called as a starter for the school she grew up watching did come as a surprise.
It’s been a long road just to get to college, much less as a starting middle blocker in her first collegiate match.
“I’ve always been in the stands singing Hawaii Pono’i (growing up),” said the University Lab School graduate, who combined for 14 kills to help Hawaii start 2-0 heading into home matches against Pepperdine on Friday and Saturday. “Just to be down here standing behind whoever is singing looking up at the flag, I really consider Hawaii my home so it felt really special.”
Home has had different meanings for Sylvester, who grew up in foster care before she was adopted by a family living in Aina Haina.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, the entire family moved to Missouri, forcing Sylvester to leave behind a life she had started to grow very comfortable with.
Over the course of her three years on the mainland, she played volleyball despite her wishes. Sylvester preferred playing basketball instead and was going to give up on volleyball, but her parents wouldn’t let her.
She never understood how important that decision would be until the summer before her junior year when her cell phone started ringing at 12:01 a.m. East Coast time one day when college coaches could legally begin reaching out to recruits.
She was visiting Hawaii during the summer and it was 6 p.m. when the calls started coming in, one after the other after the other.
“I got 17 Division I offers starting with calls at midnight on June 15. I had no idea there were schools interested in me,” Sylvester said. “First call was Missouri State. I think that day I talked to six different coaches, including Dayton and North Carolina too.”
When she woke up the next morning she thought to herself, “Wait, I should take this more seriously.”
Sylvester always wanted to come back to Hawaii from the moment she left, and when she received a full-ride scholarship offer to UH, her focus shifted to how she could make it back for her senior year of high school.
Her parents didn’t want her to leave Missouri. It took a very difficult sell job for Sylvester to convince them to allow her to move back for one final year at University Lab, located just across the street from UH, while living by herself.
“I rented a little studio by myself for my senior year,” Sylvester said. “I have really good support here, people I call family here.”
Part of the reason her parents decided to allow Miliana to move back to Hawaii was the opportunity to play club volleyball for her college coach.
Robyn Ah Mow said she first met Sylvester at a school event when Sylvester, who was in the “sixth or seventh grade” at University, took a picture with her that she ended up seeing for the first time years later.
“She’s pretty impressive. She came here and does everything by herself,” Ah Mow said. “She’s living by herself, she’s paying all of her bills as a high school student. She’s more mature than any normal freshman coming in, but all of the things that she could have possibly have gone through to get here, you have to be pretty resilient.”
It is why when Ah Mow openly tabs her as “Amber 2.0,” in reference to Amber Igiede, a two-time, third-team AVCA All-American, the label doesn’t faze Sylvester.
The comparison is about much more than just physical appearance.
“Just the wanting to be better. She can pick things up and soak things in and be pretty good,” Ah Mow said. “OK, I’ve got to bring up Amber, but she’s almost just like Amber. Good kid and just wants to come into the gym and learn. She wants to go hard every day.”
Sylvester has heard the comparisons and takes it as a compliment.
At the same time, she wants to continue doing what she has done her entire life and write her own story about not only her upbringing, but her time as a Rainbow Wahine volleyball player.
“I really look up to Amber and I’ve always looked up to Amber and I’m excited to hold onto that expectation for myself,” Sylvester said. “It makes me feel really good that (Coach Robyn) sees that potential in me, but I am also fighting to be my own version of Mili 1.0.
“I’m proud of how hard I’ve worked and I hope to be an inspiration for other kids who have struggled with their home life or maybe they were a foster kid and they didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Sylvester said. “Now I’m here and playing for Hawaii and playing in front of incredible fans and I have a huge support system. I am grateful.”
