Naturally at ease on a diamond or court, Dee Wisneski wasn’t exactly in her comfort zone walking into a spotlight in a banquet hall.
Wisneski had earned a place in the Hawaii High School Athletic Association Hall of Honor’s class of 1991 as a multi-sport standout at Waimea. When the formal induction rolled around, she found herself as the lone girl in the 12-member group.
Wisneski recalled her fellow inductees were “super nice and made me feel comfortable.” Still, the disparity was stark and didn’t go unnoticed by the evening’s keynote speaker, former University of Hawaii women’s volleyball player Nahaku Brown, who used her time on the microphone to admonish the selection committee.
“At first being up there it was more the intimidation factor,” said Wisneski, who excelled in softball, volleyball, basketball and track over a decorated prep career on Kauai. “Once she stood up for not having enough women up there it was just, ‘Yeah, what the heck?’
“It did sink in. It did give me a little more confidence in myself as to, yeah I really do deserve to be here with the people who helped me get to where I was at that point — my parents, my coaches, my family. … Sitting there (at first) with a whole bunch of guys you kind of second guess yourself like, ‘How did I get here?’”
Wisneski had signed with the UH softball program and enrolled that fall, hanging out in the dorms with several Hall of Honor members who joined the Rainbow Warrior football and baseball teams.
She has been a fixture in Manoa ever since, serving as an on-field leader for the Rainbow Wahine during a breakthrough era in the program’s history and transitioning into coaching almost immediately after graduation.
Now heading into her 27th year working with head coach Bob Coolen, Wisneski has proved integral in the program’s growth while witnessing the transformation of the softball team’s niche on the Lower Campus.
“It’s been an amazing journey,” Wisneski said. “I’ve seen the good, the bad, the ugly, the in between, but I can’t complain.
“I cannot complain about where I am in my career and my softball playing days and just watching all these young women play the sport they love. Not just moving on to play at the next level, but just becoming vibrant members of the community. It melts my heart to see that happen.
“I can look back and say if it wasn’t for Title IX I wouldn’t be where I am,” Wisneski said of the law’s impact on the growth of softball among other women’s sports. “So I want these young kids to experience everything I have.”
Kauai didn’t have much of a softball scene while Wisneski was growing up, and she started out playing baseball. Among her first softball experiences came while playing with her mother and aunts on an adult slow pitch team at 12, when “literally my number was 1/2 on my jersey.”
While in middle school, she received an exception to play in a fastpitch league among the island’s private schools, and she went on to lead Waimea to the high school state championship in 1990.
Waimea’s repeat bid fell short in Wisneski’s senior year, which was when Coolen first met her at Roosevelt’s football field, which was converted into a softball field for the state tournament.
“I remember sitting in the stands with her and she was so salty because they had already been eliminated and couldn’t win it,” said Coolen, then a UH assistant under Rayla Allison. “I could tell right there she was just extremely competitive.”
Coolen succeeded Allison as head coach in Wisneski’s freshman year and acknowledges the shortstop “took my guff” early on.
“Dee took the brunt of my rookie coaching years at the Division I level for sure,” Coolen said. “I’d get under her skin sometimes, because I put all the burden on her shoulders to be the leader because she was my shortstop. … I would really come down on her if the team wasn’t doing what I wanted them to do.”
Wisneski was entering her junior year when Coolen recruited Brooke Wilkins from Australia to anchor the pitching staff. During a bullpen session prior to the 1994 season, “I looked at Dee and said ‘we’re going somewhere,’” Coolen said.
Wisneski was a mainstay at shortstop for all 132 games as part of a dynamic lineup, and with Wilkins and Kym Weil leading the pitching staff, the Wahine went 98-33 over the 1994 and ’95 seasons. UH made its NCAA Tournament debut after winning its first Big West championship in 1994, having placed no higher than fifth in the program’s first nine years of existence.
“She had the Hawaii spirit, she had the cultural connection and she wanted everyone to fit in regardless of who you were,” Coolen said of Wisneski’s role as co-captain in UH’s first two NCAA Tournament seasons.
“We want to be a team, we want to be a family, and she did espouse the ohana nature of playing in Hawaii.”
Wisneski’s graduation coincided with a vacancy on the coaching staff and Coolen invited her to stick around as a student assistant. A full-time position followed in 1997, and in 2010 she was given the designation as the program’s first associate coach.
As a player and coach, she has been around for each of Coolen’s 1,062 wins at UH, as well as six conference championships and 11 NCAA Tournament appearances, highlighted by the 2010 trip to the Women’s College World Series.
For the past 12 years, she’s worked alongside another UH alum in Kaulana Gould, an outfielder from 2005 to 2008, and has seen several former players go into coaching, whether locally in high school or at mainland colleges.
“I chose to stay home and I have no regrets,” Wisneski said. “God has blessed me to be home and do what I love to do for such a long time. I’ve got good support from Bob and coaching with Lanz (Gould) for over 10 years. I feel we have had good chemistry.”
Since Wisneski commanded the infield as a player, she’s seen the small set of bleachers on either side of the field replaced by 1,200-seat grandstands with an artificial turf field. A clubhouse behind the first-base dugout was unveiled in the spring with offices for the coaching staff.
“It’s mind-blowing,” Wisneski said of the contrast between the field she played on and the current facility. “I had friends here — (former UH teammates) Julie Luft, Cheyenne Thompson, Steph Keeler. Steph walked around on the turf and she was blown away by how much it has grown and how amazing our stadium is compared to what we had.”
She has also seen opportunities expand to play beyond college, including Nawai Kaupe, UH’s starting shortstop for the past three seasons, playing with the Florida Vibe this summer.
“Title IX has blessed women in softball with so many opportunities to continue to play the sport,” Wisneski said.
“Back then (in her playing days) nobody really talked about it. But now a lot of my student-athletes graduate, and when they go to grad school they write their research paper on Title IX. Everybody knows about it, but we’re still learning a lot about it.”
As for the Hall of Honor, the classes have been far more balanced since Wisneski’s induction and Brown’s speech in 1991. The 1995 class was the first year the class was split evenly, and eight girls were selected in 1998.
“It wasn’t just the opportunities, but I don’t think girls got the exposure or the credit that we deserved in putting in the same amount of time in practice and on the field and the sweat and the tears and the work,” Wisneski said. “Maybe we didn’t get that recognition that girls deserved back then. Good for her that (Brown) did that because it did open up the eyes of the committee.”
DEIRDRE WISNESKI
University of Hawaii softball associate head coach
Education:
>> Waimea High School, 1991; University of Hawaii, 1996
Highlights:
>> All-State and All-KIF in softball, basketball and volleyball
>> Honolulu Advertiser Female Athlete of the Year, 1991
>> HHSAA Hall of Honor, 1991
>> University of Hawaii softball co-captain, 1994-95
>> Starting shortstop on UH’s first Big West championship team (1994) and first two NCAA Tournament teams (1994, ‘95).
>> Member of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association West Region Coaching Staff of the Year, 2007
June 23, 2022, marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX. To commemorate this watershed event, the Star-Advertiser will publish a series of stories celebrating the achievements of female pioneers and leaders with Hawaii ties.
Click here to view the Title IX series.
