Tama Miyashiro first walked into
the University of Washington gym seven years ago. She was short, she was
soft-spoken, she was a long way from her Hawaiian home.
The women on the UW court were bigger,
older, and brimming with confidence. By the end of that 2005 season, several
would be All-Americans, one would be college volleyball player of the year, and
the team would win the national championship.
They barely noticed the young
freshman setter, a walk-on.
“That was a pretty big learning
experience for me,” Miyashiro remembers. “I’d never been on a team where you have
people who are so strong—both physically and their personalities.”
She never played a minute that
magical season, and was granted redshirt status, giving her four more years of eligibility.
She knew she was unlikely to unseat starting setter Courtney Thompson the next
season.
One fateful day in spring 2006, Washington
head coach Jim McLaughlin told Miyashiro to stick around after practice.
“I served her a ball,” says
McLaughlin, “and I said, now, Tama, hold your arms like this. And I served her
another ball.”
“I was doing all kinds of weird
things,” Miyashiro says, “‘cause I was attacking like I was still a setter or
hitter at home in Hawai’i. The only actually passing or anything I had done in
high school was bump setting.”
“Then,” McLaughlin continues, “I
said, Tama, now put your wrist and hands together so your platform’s like this.
And I served it.”
“I learned how to hold my hands,”
Miyashiro remembers. “I learned straight and simple. We kind of started from
the ground, and worked our way up.”
After serving dozens of balls—some
hard, some soft, some deep and some short—McLaughlin ended the session. “I
walked up to the office after 20 minutes. Only 20 minutes. And I said to my
coaching staff, you guys, we got our libero.”
— · — · —
Hawaiian kids grow up dreaming
about being volleyball Olympians the way Canadian kids dream of being hockey
Olympians. Volleyball rules the Islands.
Tama’s mother, Joey, played for
the beloved University of Hawai’i Rainbow Wahine. But at Kalani High School,
Tama played both basketball and volleyball. Although she was only 5-7, she
excelled as an outside hitter and played setter when she rotated to the back
row.
 |
Tama Miyashiro and Courtney Thompson with
young fans in Anaheim |
Her senior year, she finally
quit basketball, and was named MVP at the state volleyball tournament. Although
she was selected statewide Player of the Year, Miyashiro had never aggressively
entered the college recruiting scene.
“My cousin, who was my club
coach, made me send tapes to all the Pac-10 schools. It was already late in the
game; already my senior year.
“A lot of schools wrote back.
But they kinda gave the sorry, we’re done
with all the scholarship positions already. So, if you apply to the school and
you get in, then let us know.”
At Washington, McLaughlin was
also out of scholarships. But he agreed when Miyashiro wanted to pay a visit to
Seattle.
“We learned about her as a person,” McLaughlin
says. “She’s a driven kid. She’s laid back, but she’ll compete. She’ll make
improvements. She’ll do what you need to do.”
“I liked his [Jim’s] personality,”
Miyashiro says. “He’s kind of even keel, and he’s not a yeller. I’ve played for
a couple of coaches that are kinda the opposite of Jim, really emotional,
pretty loud. So, right off the bat, I was drawn to that part of his coaching
style.”
Washington’s out-of-state
tuition is steep, but both Miyashiro and her parents were confident she could earn
a scholarship after one year. She walked on to that national championship team,
and immediately found an ally: Courtney Thompson.
“I felt a connection with how
much she loved the game. How much she loved competing. How much she loved Jim.
And I could tell right off the bat that I would want to play with someone like
this.
“She kind of took me under her
wing and showed me the ropes. She didn’t have to do that.”
Instead of competing with
Thompson, however, she found herself trying to replace another legend: graduating
All-American libero Candace Lee, a revered defender who was McLaughlin’s very
first recruit at Washington.
 |
| Jim McLaughlin |
“Candace always reminded me of
the basics,” Miyashiro says. “She was always, practice your wrist and hands! That was a small gesture, but a huge
message. If I keep it simple, remember the basics, all I need to do is track
the ball and think about what Jim taught us. I
think the more simple she kept it, the better she was. And it was a good role
model for me.”
“Tama could pass frickin’ nails,”
says McLaughlin. “She had a great serve; we developed that. She could dig
lights out—had great eyework, got good angles on the ball. And then she could
cover better than anyone in the world.”
But McLaughlin required more.
Off the court, both Lee and Miyashiro were notoriously quiet. Once they stepped
on the court, that had to change. Miyashiro couldn’t believe the first time she
heard Lee scream during practice when a free ball headed across the net.
“At first I said, oh, my gosh.
That’s coming out of that girl? And then you realize that, by her doing that,
she‘s making the team better. Yes, that’s how you should call a free ball.”
McLaughlin took note.
“Tama was the coolest, nicest, gentlest kid off the
court. But a fierce competitor on the court. She had perfect balance as a
person. I don’t think there’s one person in the world that doesn’t like being
around her.”
Miyashiro was a four-year
starter, all at libero. She was repeatedly named national Defensive Player of
the Year and broke Lee’s school record for career digs. McLaughlin credits her
unfailing willingness to improve.
“What Tama just could do better
than any kid, is learn. She was a great student of the game.”
— · — · —
At the international level,
defensive players are a dying breed. The rules permit limited substitutions, so
most outside hitters have to play back row rather than be substituted for
defensive specialists. Some teams have begun carrying just a single defender (a
libero) on their 12-person roster.
Two defenders—Stacy Sykora and
Nicole Davis—had been on the 2008 Silver Medal Olympic team, and both intended
to return for London. But Sykora was seriously injured in a car accident, and
Miyashiro earned a spot on the traveling squad for all four stages of the 2012
World Grand Prix.
“Tama’s ability to defend is, I
think, pretty unique,” says USA head coach Hugh McCutcheon. “She makes great
reads and she gets in good spots and just has a way of popping the ball up.”
“One of the things Hugh preached
to me early is, you just gotta work hard, work hard, work hard. Every day he was
telling me, work hard. For me, I know what working hard means.”
Nonetheless, Davis wore the
libero jersey at the start of each World Grand Prix round, leaving Miyashiro to
come in most sets as a late serve-and-dig specialist. She never considered it an
insult.
“When you go into a match like
that, where you’re playing a good team and you’re kind of in a rut and they’re
kind of playing well: you need to score some points.”
And score she did. In match
after match, Miyashiro’s serve proved effective, and her defense raised
eyebrows. When Davis suffered an injury during the final round, Miyashiro was
elevated to starting libero. At several crucial junctures—especially against
China—her ability to see the ball and dig off the net made all the difference.
“She can have a profound
influence on the momentum of a set,” says McCutcheon.
“It was really fun to see it all
come together,” she says. “And at the right time, too.”
Many observers assumed McCutcheon
had decided on 11 of his 12 Olympians, with the final spot a toss-up between
Miyashiro or an additional hitter, like Cynthia Barboza, Kristin Richards or
Heather Bown. Miyashiro got the nod.
“As was proven in the Grand Prix
Finals,” says McCutcheon, “if our libero happens to get hurt, Tama can step right
into that position. On top of that, she’s a great competitor, a great teammate.”
— · — · —
The time difference between Hawai’i
and London is eleven hours, almost as far as it can get. It means that Hawaiian
volleyball fans will have to get up early—sometimes very early—to see the USA
play.
All twelve volleyball Olympians
will have hometown folks rooting for them, but it will be different in Hawai’i.
They’ll be cheering wildly for two local kids: Miyashiro and Honolulu native
Lindsey Berg.
Folks in Hawai’i don’t just play
volleyball, they understand volleyball. And they understand what it takes for
an undersized kid from the Islands to wear the USA jersey in the sport’s
biggest spotlight.
So for a new generation of
Hawaiian kids, Miyashiro will be a role model in a way she never dreamed when
she was glued to the set watching previous Olympics. She wants those kids to
know her journey was not a fluke.
“Honestly, I’ve put in a lot of
time and a lot of work. And, in my heart, I think I’m getting the payoff that I
deserve. That may sound a little selfish, but it’s actually what I really
think.”
Selfish? Hardly. More like
Olympian.
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