A “Fabulous” member of the basketball program, a decorated diver, a trail-blazing administrator and a generous supporter have joined the University of Hawaii’s sports elite.
Bob Nash, Emma Friesen, Hugh Yoshida and Carolyn A. Berry Wilson have been selected to UH’s Circle of Honor. They will be feted in a banquet in September.
Nash was affiliated with the UH basketball program for more than three decades, first as a power forward on the “Fabulous Five” teams and then as an assistant coach, associate head coach and head coach.
“I’m honored the (selection) committee saw fit to honor me with this award,” Nash said. “But at the end of the day, it’s all about a group effort. You never do anything alone. You always have people who push you to the top, and I appreciate the people who pushed me to this level.”
Nash was a highly sought junior college player who appeared set to join Kansas. But he did not feel the same connection with the Kansas staff as he did with Red Rocha, who was UH’s coach at the time. Rocha showed Nash an 8mm film of the Rainbows, then pitched a vision of a team that was a few players away from success. “He was very honest, and that’s what I was looking for,” Nash recalled.
Nash, John Penebacker, Dwight Holiday, Jerome Freeman and Al Davis became the Fabulous Five, winning 47 of 55 games during the 1970-71 and 1971-72 seasons. The Rainbows qualified for the 25-team NCAA in 1971 and the NIT in 1972. In the 1971 Rainbow Classic, Nash grabbed a school-record 30 rebounds against Arizona State. In the 1972 NBA Draft, the Detroit Pistons picked Nash ninth overall — a spot ahead of Paul Westphal and three in front of Julius “Dr. J” Erving.
After his pro career, Nash returned to Honolulu, where he worked for an insurance company. At the suggestion of Riley Wallace, who was an associate head coach at the time, Nash returned to UH as an assistant while completing student-teaching work. In 1984, Nash earned his bachelor’s degree in education, and then was promoted to full-time assistant coach. Nash worked under head coaches Larry Little, Frank Arnold and then Wallace before being hired for the head job in 2007. After three seasons as UH’s head coach, he coached seven years in Japan.
Nash, who is in negotiations to coach with Japanese teams, often spends time in San Diego to be with his children, Bobby and Erika, and grandchildren. “Hawaii is home,” Nash said.
Friesen, who was born and reared in Canada, is the daughter of two divers. But she became drawn to the sport hanging out with a friend whose mother, Beverly Boys, was a three-time Olympian. “I just fell in love with flipping,” Friesen said. “It carried on from there.”
Friesen and a friend once joked it would be a “pipe dream” to attend school in Hawaii. “That would be incredible and la, la, la, (UH coach) Mike Brown contacted me,” Friesen recalled. Of the four recruiting trips, she said, “I fell in love with the diversity of the people. And the place is pretty magical. It was an exceptional team of athletes and individuals I met. I was like, ‘OK, I guess I’ll try this.’ ”
As a sophomore in 2008, she won the NCAA title in the 1-meter event despite suffering from a shoulder injury. “I do remember my last dive (of the meet),” she said. “In diving, you can either rise to the pressure and the fear or you can crumple to it. At different times and different places, you go one way or the other. I do remember the athlete before me doing really well and thinking, ‘Awesome. They’re going to have to score me higher. I’m ready for this.’ ”
That year, she won the Joe Kearney Award as the Western Athletic Conference’s top female athlete in all sports. She was a repeat Kearney winner in 2011, when she also earned the Jack Bonham Award as UH’s top female student-athlete.
Friesen is now a registered nurse who works in a children’s emergency center in a Vancouver hospital. She also helps in towns with populations of 2,000 or fewer.
Before Yoshida became the first Division I athletic director of Asian ancestry, he was a boy in Kapaa who wore centipede-proof pants and dreamed of playing football for ‘Iolani School. It was a goal he harbored since the Red Raiders played a preseason game on Kauai.
Yoshida eventually attended ‘Iolani (he lived at the school’s dorm), then went on to become an NAIA All-America linebacker at Linfield. After earning a master’s degree and coaching in California, he became head coach at Waialua and then Leilehua. He coached future NFL players Al Harris and Adrian Murrell at Leilehua, and led the Mules to a 10-0 victory over Saint Louis in the 1984 Oahu Prep Bowl.
Yoshida eventually served as the OIA’s executive secretary, then was hired as associate athletic director at UH. After athletic director Stan Sheriff’s death in 1992, Yoshida was named as his successor. During Yoshida’s 10 years as AD, he started the school’s soccer program, helped develop a gender-equity plan, hired June Jones as head football coach and kept the athletic department profitable for all but two years. Yoshida, who often is called upon as consultant, was inducted into Linfield’s Hall of Fame in 2002. Leilehua named its football stadium after Yoshida. Of his Circle induction, Yoshida said, “I feel very honored, to say the least.”
Berry Wilson and her now deceased first husband, George B. Berry, moved from Detroit following his retirement. “We had tickets to all the professional teams there,” she said. “The Pistons was one of them. I loved basketball all my life. I read in the paper the University of Hawaii basketball team had a game coming up. I asked my husband if we could go, and he said, ‘Oh, it won’t be like the Pistons.’ I said, ‘I know, but we should go.’ I tell the story he went kicking and screaming. During the game, he turned to me and said, ‘When’s their next game?’ ”
After George Berry’s death in 1996, Berry Wilson became heavily involved in philanthropy. She donated and helped raise money for several organizations, including the Honolulu Symphony and the UH basketball program. When an event raised $100,000 for an endowed scholarship for men’s basketball, Berry Wilson matched the amount with her own $100,000 donation. She has served as vice president/fundraising for ‘Ahahui Koa Anuenue, UH’s fundraising umbrella for athletics.
