The University of Hawaii at Hilo finalized an unusual accord Thursday when it announced it had rehired former softball coach and Hilo native Callen Perreira, who resigned his position following the 2009 season and took an assistant coaching position at
The University of Hawaii at Hilo finalized an unusual accord Thursday when it announced it had rehired former softball coach and Hilo native Callen Perreira, who resigned his position following the 2009 season and took an assistant coaching position at a junior college, the College of Southern Nevada.
Perreira, who coached the Vulcans for 20 years (1990-2009), achieved 18 consecutive winning seasons while compiling a 576-345-3 record. He led his 2004 and 2005 teams to Pacific West Conference championships. Prior to coming to UH Hilo, Perreira was the softball coach at Hilo High School from 1978-87 and recorded 161 wins against 32 defeats.
He will replace Peejay Brun, a Kauai native, who won over the players in her short two-year stint as Vulcans head coach. Brun’s team was 63-33-1, producing back-to-back 30-win seasons while developing an all-American in sophomore Bailey Gaspar and all-Pacific West Conference first team selection Cristina Menjivar. Brun had accepted an associate head coach offer from Division I Texas State University, where she had previously been an assistant.
If it all seems like small-world stuff, it goes one step further in that Southern Nevada director of athletics Dexter Irvin left a similar post at UHH to take the AD job at Southern Nevada, with a student body of 40,000.
The Coyotes recently decided to make the softball coaching position full-time, an upgrade from the part-time position it had been when Perreira was originally hired.
Perreira chose not to apply for the full-time position that was eventually filled by Josh Taylor, who Irvin announced would be the new head coach.
“The school decided to make it a full-time position,” Irvin said Thursday, “and we invited Cal and anyone else interested in applying for the new position. His teams competed, his kids hit the ball in what is a really good JC league, but at the end, Josh was selected.
“We appreciate Cal’s efforts for us when he was here,” Irvin said.
Perreira left UHH after his budget was cut in half at a time when it was the most successful program in the school. He had just reached state of Hawaii retirement age (back then) of 55, with at least 20 years on the job, so hee opted to go into retirement.
“There were some things going on, but I don’t want to go into it,” Perreira said, “all those people are gone now, it’s a fresh start and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
His decision not to apply for the Southern Nevada job differs a bit from Irvin’s perspective. Perreira essentially built the program from nothing, won 75 games in the last two years and had his team ranked nationally in the Top 5, but Irvin said he would have to reapply for the position. When Perreira learned an in-house promotion could have been made in the first 5-7 days, he decided not to apply.
“I just don’t want to go there on all the details and what-not,” Perreira said, “I enjoyed working with the girls, my time here was fun for me and successful for the school and coming back home sounds very good to me.
“I can hardly wait to get back to Hilo and start working again,” he said. “The conference is much different now than it once was, the level of competition is higher, but I know Peejay very well, I’ve known her family for 40 years; I saw her team play in Las Vegas last fall and I know she’s recruited very well, we keep in touch.”
Vulcans AD Pat Guillen said he didn’t get a flood of interest in the opening because he never posted it.
“I knew about Cal’s situation and I can tell you that the minute I heard Peejay was going to leave, I immediately thought of him,” Guillen said. “He’s the most successful coach this school has ever had, I wanted to contact him right away.”
Perreira thought the same thing when he heard about Brun’s departure.
His name and background carries a lot of weight here in Hilo, clearly more than it did in Southern Nevada.
The returning head coach said the team’s goals will be as they were last time he was with the Vulcans.
“Our expectations and goals won’t change,” he said. “First, we want to win the conference, then we want to work our way through the playoffs and get to the World Series. Can we do it? Yes.”
For Perreira, who plans to call every player in the coming days, the job of making all those challenges come alive will start on his first day of work, August 15.
He’ll have about six months to get comfortable with everyone before the season starts.
