HONOLULU — When the world takes some swings, just bob and weave.
Kate Lang’s gotten pretty good at that over the last few years. The Hawaii volleyball setter has learned, through experience, that you never know exactly what life will throw at you.
“You can’t let little things, and things that are out of your control, control your own life,” Lang reflected recently. “You have to be your own person.
“I feel like that really helps me with athletics. Being able to roll with the punches.”
Lang, who grew up in Keller, Texas, took a very non-traditional route to a starting job with the Rainbow Wahine. Upon arrival on Oahu in July 2020, she took a 15-day detour to a Waikiki hotel room.
That mandated quarantine experience, with hours upon hours of solo time to while away in a strange new place, was difficult. Three-hour workouts with a weighted jump rope, Netflix, phone calls and sleep only take up so much time. Other Rainbow Wahine were just a few doors down, but they had roommates with whom they were sequestered. Lang, the last to arrive because of the timing of her graduation from Keller High, was the odd one out.
“I was a mess. It was horrible. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. And I could never do that again, in the same realm of my life, being a (then) 18-year-old,” Lang said. “It was crazy. I’m glad we’re over it.” She laughed.
Missing competition that entire 2020-21 year because the Big West was one of the only conferences in the country to cancel the 2020 season was tougher, and hit the whole group in different ways.
Coach Robyn Ah Mow was devastated at the news that there would be no makeshift spring season. Breaking it to the team that December was difficult and emotional.
“Some of them, if they volleyball’s not there, they don’t know what to do,” Ah Mow said. “I think that was the hardest part; the not having the volleyball and not having the interaction with other people, was very hard for them, for some of them.”
Mental health was a legitimate topic. It was as much a learning experience for the coaches as it was for the players. The team could barely gather together; its practices were capped at four people on the court.
“I thought they came through it OK. I don’t know, am I wrong?” the coach, known for her blunt, honest style, said with a laugh. “I thought (Kate) came out OK.”
The 2021 season was the beginning of a return to normalcy, but for the team, it still was far from being completely normal. UH played in empty gyms for nearly the whole season; up to 500 fans, a small fraction of a usual crowd, were allowed at Wahine home games down the stretch.
All but four players on the 2022 Rainbow Wahine roster (Amber Igiede, Braelyn Akana, Tiffany Westerberg and Riley Wagoner are the exceptions) will experience an unrestricted crowd for a UH home game for the first time Thursday night as UH hosts Texas State (3-0) on Day 1 of the Outrigger Volleyball Challenge at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
UH (0-3) took its lumps in a very difficult opening tournament at Texas A&M last weekend, coming up short in a five-setter with the host Aggies, then going down in straight sets to ranked opponents Pittsburgh and San Diego. The last two lineups were considerably larger than that of UH.
Lang, who got to enjoy the cuisine of her home state, considered it otherwise a business trip and an educational experience.
“I think that a lesson I personally learned was that Hawaii volleyball can hold our own with the big dogs, and that the little points are the ones that count the most,” she said. “For instance, we missed a few serves in the game against Texas A&M. We only lost by a few points. Every point really matters.
“I’m really happy with how well the team has meshed together though, and how much of a team we were when we lost. It shows our sisterhood and camaraderie. I’m excited for this weekend for sure.”
Lang started all three Texas matches, but senior Mylana Byrd, another Lone Star State native who was the first-string setter for the first third of the 2021 campaign, also made appearances.
“That’s one thing we’re going to continue to keep working on,” Ah Mow said of the connection between the setters and hitters. “I thought it got better throughout the three matches.”
Ah Mow affirmed that the setter job – the one to which the former Olympian setter pays the closest eye – will continue to be fought for at practice.
Lang, as a club setter for Texas Advantage Volleyball, caught Ah Mow’s notice at a tournament while she was just 15. It was her hands. She possessed that uncoachable quality of touch with the ball, explained Ah Mow, who resolved then that Lang would be her future setter. Lang was fully committed to UH by her sophomore year at Keller.
Her first season of college volleyball had some ups and downs – there was plenty of tough love from Ah Mow while the 5-foot-10 Lang learned to be a full-rotation player – before ending on a high. Lang earned the starting job by Big West play and went on to be named an all-conference first-teamer. She dealt 10.36 assists per set, second in the conference and 45th in the NCAA.
“She’s stronger for it,” Ah Mow said. “She opened up her eyes, and she found out, ‘hey, this is how it’s going to be,’ and she got on the bandwagon and kept going. That’s what we want to do here. It’s not just about volleyball, but helping these kids grow up and make adult decisions.”
That time arrived sooner than most for Lang.
As an only child, she moved from Indiana, where she was born, with her parents to Texas before she entered the third grade.
Her mother, Deanna, was the athlete in the family; she was a volleyball, basketball and track athlete at Purdue. Her father, Jeff, was a theater aficionado.
It was her mother who played pepper with her as a child and taught her about the game. When Kate had no one to play with, the family garage sufficed. The thuds of Kate hitting a ball off the wall would reverberate through the house.
But her father was always there, a devoted club volleyball parent.
In December of 2018, devastating news arrived: Jeff Lang, while away on a business trip, died suddenly in a hotel room, a victim of a heart attack. Kate was only 16.
“That was really tough. I feel like it still makes me, every day, have a different perspective on things,” Lang said.
She and her mother moved out of the house her parents had built and rode out the start of the pandemic together in a small apartment in Keller.
“My mom and I, when we found out that COVID was hitting, and I came home from spring break (as a Keller senior), we were like, oh shoot, this is a real thing, it’s not a joke,” Lang said. “We were just laughing about it. Because, we’re just rolling with the punches at that point. It was just another punch.”
Deanna Lang since moved back to Indiana to be closer to family, but she returned to Texas for the tournament in College Station, and has periodically visited her daughter in Hawaii.
Lang would stress about small mistakes hours after they were made in her first season, replaying them in her head over and over. She resolved not to do so in 2022, realizing the players to her left and right have her back and that “I’m not the main character here.”
“It’s OK to have a good time. I feel a lot more achieved of that,” she said.
“I’m just here to play volleyball and have fun.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.