HONOLULU — The homegrown talent is omnipresent. Why not, wondered the administration of Chaminade University, pull in such athletes to its Kaimuki campus?

Chaminade announced a two-sport expansion this week, adding baseball and beach volleyball to its portfolio of sponsored NCAA activities for the 2023-24 athletic year.

What You Need To Know

  • Chaminade University will add baseball and beach volleyball to its portfolio of sports for the 2023-24 athletic calendar, the private Division II institution announced this week

  • While the Silverswords have a beach coach lined up in indoor volleyball coach Kahala Kabalis Hoke, they must search for a baseball coach who can recruit a roster of 30-plus players in time for the 2024 season

  • Chaminade hopes to boost overall enrollment and revenues with the sport additions

  • The Silverswords had a baseball team in the early 1980s that went 20-6 in its first year, but the program was downgraded to club status, then folded amid financial difficulties

CU is searching for a baseball coach who will have to hustle to recruit a team to have ready by the spring of 2024. Silverswords indoor volleyball coach Kahala Kabalis Hoke will coach the first Silverswords beach squad that same season.

“It’ll be an exciting time and a lot of work. We’ll really have to roll up our sleeves to get it done right,” Silverswords Athletic Director Tom Buning told Spectrum News on Tuesday.

The Silverswords' baseball program is actually being revived from the early 1980s after an existence of just two seasons. It was shut down due to financial reasons, Chaminade said, but that’s actually the same reason why it’s being brought back now, according to Buning.

The addition of the sports came about as an idea in early 2022 as an answer to a university-wide call to look at ways to expanding enrollment.

“For us, sports at the Division II level are generally seen as a big enrollment driver, which is always great to the bottom line for the university,” Buning said.

He noted that the addition of 30 to 40 baseball student-athletes and a beach volleyball team (existing beach programs typically have 15 to 20 players, though there are typically some crossovers from indoor volleyball) will expand Chaminade’s total count of student-athletes by about 25%. 

Chaminade doesn’t have the baseball facilities to play on campus; it will hold practices and play its home games at to-be-determined sites through the City and County of Honolulu. Possibilities include Central Oahu Regional Park, Hans L’Orange Park and Koko Head Park, Buning said. Baseball will have nine full-ride scholarships.

“It’s really an underserved sport here on island in that there so much great talent, 48 high schools and lots of kids moving on to play at the college level,” he said. “I thought, well, that’s a missed opportunity if we want to keep Hawaii kids in Hawaii.”

The Silverswords will play the state’s other Division II programs – Hawaii Pacific University and Hawaii Hilo – among nine existing baseball programs in the PacWest Conference. The PacWest is also adding Westmont as a new baseball program.

Unlike baseball, beach volleyball, while sponsored by the NCAA, does not have Division I-II classification. Failing an invite from the Big West for a provisional membership in the sport, Chaminade can compete against a similar pool of programs that the University of Hawaii does, such as USC, UCLA and Washington, with the goal of making the NCAA tournament based on a strong resume. Its home matches will be played at Queen’s Beach in Waikiki.

After the additions, the Silverswords’ teams will stand at five men’s and seven women’s. Chaminade last added sports in 2006-07, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s basketball.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.