With first serve in the air Friday night, the countdown is on to the milestone 25th anniversary of University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine volleyball at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The official ceremonies will come later, celebrating the actual Oct. 21, 1994 inaugural match.

But the new season, coach Robyn Ah Mow’s third at the helm of her alma mater, also serves as a reminder of something that is missing.

Three years after Hall of Fame volleyball coach Dave Shoji stepped down, there is still not the substantive designation on the building to mark his 22 years in the place or the overall 42 years that he shaped the school’s most successful athletic team. Nothing that truly celebrates in his name the coach who guided the only four national championship banners that hang in the rafters or the 1,202 victories.

You would have thought that there would have been a naming of “Shoji Court” or “Shoji Floor” by now. The refinishing of the $90,000 floor this month that the Taraflex will rest upon would have been a good opportunity to do it.

“Shoji Doors,” anyone?

From the time that Shoji began closing in on 40 years as the Rainbow Wahine coach, there had been talk of honoring his legacy by naming the floor or court — or something — after him. But at this point that is all that it remains, wishful talk.

Authority for naming of buildings at UH rests with the Board of Regents, whose policy has been to not name them for living persons except “… when approved by the board in special and well-justified cases.”

The re-naming of Rainbow Stadium in 2002 to Les Murakami Stadium in honor of the Hall of Fame former baseball coach who concluded his career the year before was one such “well-justified case” and is clearly precedent for doing the same for Shoji, among others.

You could put two other well-deserving and long retired coaches, Riley Wallace of men’s basketball and Vince Goo of Rainbow Wahine hoops, in the same conversation. Wallace went 334-265 in 20 years as a head coach and Goo 334-166 in his 17. Both also invested time as assistants.

But slapping “Goo, Shoji and Wallace” on the Sheriff Center court would be unwieldy, not to mention sound like a downtown law firm.

UH has two state-of-the-art, air-conditioned practice gyms, newly renovated and upgraded at a cost of about $10 million, that could help solve the issue. Currently referred to as Gym 1 and Gym 2, the places cry out for better, less generic names. Both are places where Goo and Wallace spent years of their lives coaching, often steamed like too many manapua.

Standing across from the rickety 61-year-old Klum Gym, which in better days was a tribute to football-basketball coach Otto “Proc” Klum, you could have Wallace Gym and Goo Gym.

It would be nice if they were around to see their names on something that recognized their considerable accomplishments rather than waiting until they were no longer with us.

We could have lost Shoji, who, thankfully, has prevailed in his bout with prostate cancer. He will be 73 in a few months. Wallace, who turns 78 shortly, has survived a series of strokes. Goo is 72.

Stan Sheriff lived only long enough to see ground broken on the then-named Special Events Arena that was a consuming vision and may well have contributed to his death. Due in large part to internal politics at UH, it was five years before the facility was finally named in his honor.

You’d hate to see UH miss an opportunity when someone worthy is still around.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.