Tom Shoji hired at Willamette
By Cindy Luis
From the Statesman-Journal
Willamette University has hired Tom Shoji as its women’s volleyball coach.
Shoji, younger brother of Hawaii coach Dave Shoji, has a long career as a collegiate volleyball coach. His head coaching experience in women’s volleyball totals 24 seasons, including six years each at New Mexico State and Indiana, plus 11 years at Colorado State-Pueblo and one year at Westmar (Iowa) University.
“Tom’s nationally respected teaching skills and his proven track record of success will provide our program with a boost almost immediately,” Willamette athletic director Mark Majeski said.
“I’m kind of excited about it,” said Shoji, currently the associate athletic director-compliance and student services at UC San Diego. “I’m coming into a conference with a lot of experienced coaches. It’s going to be a challenge getting Willamette competing for that conference title in the future. That’s our ultimate goal for now.”
Willamette has been 4-22 each of the past two seasons and has lost 43 Northwest Conference matches in a row.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Dave has a brother who coaches Women’s Vollyball too? Am I the only one thinking it would pretty cool to see a Shoji vs Shoji coached match?
March 1st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
You missed it. ;-( Tom used to be at New Mexico State (1981-86) and the Wahine played them several times in the 80s. And since Willamette is a DIII college, it won’t happen now.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Willamette is not a junior college. It is a university with specializations in education, business, and law.
http://www.willamette.edu
May 17th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
thanks Not sure what i was thinking on the original post. it is division III. It used to be NAIA, no?
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
She totally forgot to mention that at the time this article was written, Shoji was the head coach of San Diego Mesa Men’s Volleyball.
He’s a great coach.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Thanks. the info I was given only mentioned UCSD. And I covered the UH-NMSU matches when Tom was coaching there.