A full understanding of the work in front of coaches in the Division II level of the NCAA can’t really be fully appreciated until one spends a good deal of time following around coaches in Division I.
A full understanding of the work in front of coaches in the Division II level of the NCAA can’t really be fully appreciated until one spends a good deal of time following around coaches in Division I.
A student has a question about academic load and study issues because of a lab class that will run over into practice time? Most DI schools have an office within the athletic department with a few people working every day to resolve such issues.
A conference realignment next year means the schedule needs to be drastically revised and the allocation of travel money needs to be completely reconsidered? That’s why big schools have a department head to deal with the situation and report back to the coach.
The equipment’s getting old? They have a department head for that, for an injury in practice, for almost anything that comes up apart from the tactics and strategies of coaching, someone has a specialty in that area.
It’s the biggest reason that Division II has, over the years, become the forgotten division in the NCAA. Division I has all the money and gives out scholarships like coupons for half-price popcorn at the movies. Division III is the level some fans want to pinch on the cheek because it’s so cute with its lack of scholarships, lack of fancy stadiums and huge support staffs. They do it the old-fashioned way, with students being students and playing athletics as an academic add-on.
Division II is betwixt and between. Some schools, like most of the 14 in the Pacific West Conference, have a full compliment of scholarships, an appropriate supply of assistant coaches and trainers and a budget to make it all work.
At the University of Hawaii at Hilo, the vast, mismatched terrain of Division II comes into focus, and for that reason alone, the school made an admirable decision this month when it hired former tennis coach Kula Oda as its new associated athletics director.
It’s a job that hasn’t been there and one that every Vulcans coach should have cheered. Oda, named the regions top tennis coach twice during a long and successful run at the school, knows what coaches need to get done and is now in a position to help them succeed.
He graduated from UH-Manoa with a business degree, became the school’s nonpareil tennis coach after a two-year stint at the University of Idaho where he learned everything he needed to know from the school’s head coach Greg South.
Oda and wife, Cori, came home after that experience in Vandal Land, “because we wanted to raise our family here in the islands,” and they were serious enough that when Idaho called and offered him the position after South resigned, Oda turned it down.
Coaching tennis on a partial salary had its winning benefits and its losing price tag. He was working three jobs to make the ends meet and after 2012, Oda had to step away and took a job working as the budget manager in Student Affairs.
Now, he’s back in the athletic department full time after he worked as the events manager the last couple of years in addition to his regular job.
“This job marries the two tracks I’ve followed,” he said. “I missed working with athletes regularly, but I know a little about budgets and travel, and these priorities coaches have, so I think I can be a help.
“People don’t understand in D2, how many things are on the plate on a daily basis of these coaches that a lot of coaches — certainly D1 coaches — never have to deal with.”
In some sense, Oda will be a little bit like a business and travel assistant for every coach at the school. Each sport has different priorities because each coach organizes his or her team in a distinctive way, so Oda is spending time getting with coaches for the purpose of removing a headache that isn’t about teaching and coaching.
“When you think of operational situations within the school, scholarship issues, which classes are transferrable, travel schedules, really, there’s a long list of things all these coaches have to do that don’t involve coaching and working with the students,” he said. “If I can take a bit of that load off the shoulders of some of these coaches, give them a little more opportunity to coach and teach, I’ve done my job.”
At the end of the day, how does someone not involved in the UHH athletic department know if the job’s been done?
“My hope would be that we’re more successful,” Oda said. “I can’t promise that, I can’t promise anything, really, but it’s my hope that I can do some background work, lighten the load just a bit and that by doing that, all our teams can communicate better and the coaches won’t have so much stress with all the distractions.”
One thing that seems abundantly clear is that coaches at UHH are overburdened with work that pulls them away from coaching.
Kula Oda just got the right job at the right place.