MĀNOA — Joshua Walker flashed a grin when asked about how late it all came together. He almost couldn't believe it himself.
The 2025 University of Hawai‘i women's volleyball sludged through a disappointing 12-17 season, which wrapped up in November. Citing personal and family reasons, head coach Robyn Ah Mow resigned on April 29, prompting UH to start a national search for its new coach mere months before the 2026 campaign.
Walker, the former UH men's volleyball standout and assistant coach, was hired in June. Since then, he's been on the recruiting trail for the Rainbow Wahine. It wasn't until Tuesday that his initial staff was finalized with the hiring of assistant coach Will McDonald. The day before, former BYU head coach Heather Olmstead was named UH's associate head coach.
Then on Thursday, the roster of 15 and the new coaching staff, led by Walker, converged in the UH-Mānoa practice gym for the first day of fall camp. The Rainbow Wahine will play Hawai‘i-Hilo in an exhibition on Aug. 15, then officially begin the season on Aug. 28 against Georgia Southern.
"Just the way everything has just kind of flown and synced together over those last couple weeks has just been amazing," Walker said. "The timing has been right, (though) you could have said the timing wasn't ideal. ... Everything just kind of fit right in place."
Olmstead, McDonald and former UH men's libero Kolby Kanetake are the assistant coaches on Walker's staff, replacing former Ah Mow assistants Kaleo Baxter and Nick Castello, who remained with the team throughout the summer as it transitioned in leadership.
"For me, it was just making sure that as we kind of get things going, that we're we're all on the same page and we all have have strengths that we know we can balance off each other," Walker said. "I've known Colby forever. Obviously, I coached him. Heather is elite at what she does. ... Having someone like Will on board is is instrumental as well to put all those pieces together.
"There's just a lot of people that want to help. There's a lot of people that are interested. So even though the timing was what it was, people know what this program is capable of, and just making sure we're finding the right people that can make a difference this year and potentially going forward was was very important."
In keeping with the theme of the pursuit of excellence despite extemporaneous circumstances, Walker says the team word for the 'Bows in 2026 is "Mauna," the Hawaiian word for mountain. It's also an acronym. M stands for "mission," a stands for "attitude," u stands for "uniformity," and the final a stands for "assimilate."
Also during Thursday's practice, Walker named outside hitter Tali Hakas, middle blocker Miliana Sylvester and defensive specialist Victoria Leyva the team captains for 2026. All three were standouts under Robyn Ah Mow and chose to stick around through the transition.
Despite the air of optimism that surrounded the practice gym given the team's fresh start, the Rainbow Wahine returnees won't forget their former coach, either.
"I was very close to coach Rob, and I learned a lot from her," Hakas said. "It wasn't easy (to say goodbye). But if you're gonna go play pro and that's your dream, I'm gonna go play pro one day, and that's how it's gonna be. One day you're here, one day you're in a different team, and you gotta learn to adjust to that, too. And today is day one, so I'm excited to work with coach Josh. We're gonna see how that goes, but I'm very excited for this new chapter for sure."
Said Sylvester: "I think just the lessons that (Ah Mow) taught me, so much going on the court, so much that she's taught me about life. I feel like she was a mentor, a coach, a mom. Anything I could think of, I was able to turn to her, and so I'm definitely going to be thankful for that. I'm going to continue it in my everyday. I think we use things from her all the time, every day in the gym and in life."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
