Savannah Reier stepped off the plane and into a new chapter in her life.

It’s a long way from Tuscaloosa, Ala., to Manoa, yet it didn’t take Reier very long to feel at home during her recruiting trip to the University of Hawaii as a basketball prospect.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” Reier recalled. “In Alabama we have farmland, cows, lakes, stuff like that. To see how beautiful the islands are was obviously a plus, but the people in general made that decision that much easier for me.

“It seemed like a perfect fit for me, and it was a place I was going to be able to build a future for myself.”

After two years as a player with the Rainbow Wahine basketball team (2018 to 2020) and returning to the program last year as director of player development, Reier combines southern hospitality with aloha spirit in her current role as director of recruiting for the UH football program.

Shortly after celebrating a Big West championship with the Rainbow Wahine in March, Reier jumped directly into her job with the Warrior football staff in coordinating the program’s recruiting efforts.

The energy and hustle she exuded on the court while playing for UH women’s basketball coach Laura Beeman’s program carries over into a job that leaves few hours for sleep during recruiting weekends when prospects make their official visits to the Manoa campus.

“I’m pretty much on go from Thursday night to Sunday mid-day,” said Reier, who was also drawn to the job for its emphasis on using social media to connect with recruits and promote the program and state.

Reier serves as the primary contact for the prospects over the course of the weekend. Her duties include setting up hotel reservations, travel and meals while keeping the players and coaches on track with the itinerary.

“She does an unbelievable job,” Warriors football coach Timmy Chang said. “We’re really pleased to have her and we’re really thankful Laura gave her blessing to us.

“(Reier) fit right into what we do, and because of her background and knowledge being from (UH) she had a solid base of what I want in this program and the vision and how we recruit and how we get our players and where we get them from. All of those things matter to me and they matter to our staff, and Savannah gets that.”

Known primarily for her basketball career, Reier’s affinity for football traces back to Saturday nights in Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium cheering on the Crimson Tide.

Reier was a four-year letterwinner in basketball and soccer at Northridge High School in Tuscaloosa, where she also played softball and lacrosse. She also spent three years as a kicker on the football team, accounting for more than 100 points in her prep career.

“It sparked a passion I didn’t know I had for a different sport,” she said. “So it’s nice to re-spark that passion that was ignited when I was playing high school football, because there truly is nothing like Friday night or Saturday night lights, just being in a stadium with the fans surrounding you and cheering you on.”

Basketball remained her focus in collegiate athletics, first at Shelton State Community College — where she averaged 13 points per game in 37 starts — then at UH starting with the 2018-19 season.

She assisted the program’s recruiting efforts as a player host in a career that came to an abrupt halt when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 forced the cancellation of the Big West Tournament after the Wahine advanced to the semifinals.

“When 2020 happened and life just shut down, there were no jobs, everything was on pause and there was a lack of closure with a lot of athletes in that class,” said Reier, who set her UH career high with five assists in a quarterfinal win over Cal State Fullerton.

She spent a year as a graduate assistant at Nevada — where she struck up friendships with current UH football Chief of Staff Matt Chon and Director of Player Personnel Silas Clapham — then returned to UH last year to serve in a wide-ranging role on Beeman’s staff.

“Sav is a go-getter,” said Beeman, who envisions Reier eventually working in the NFL. “She doesn’t wait for things to happen, she makes things happen.

“I tailored (the job) to what she wanted to do, and that was kind of my promise to her, that I’ll let you dabble in a lot of different areas so you can try to figure out what path you want to go to. She had her hands in everything from breaking down film to drawing up plays, helping on the recruiting side when we had visits, on road trips she would help (Director of Operations Jason Hill) organize meals. … And in all of it she brought incredible energy.”

Returning to the program also offered Reier some of the closure she missed out on in 2020.

“To be able to watch Sav celebrate with the team (last season) and get a little taste of what it felt like to win the tournament and go to the NCAAs, one of my favorite memories,” Beeman said. “That (2020) class really got the short end of the stick, and to see Sav get what she got with this group, I love that.”

For Reier, the victories this summer have come in the social media posts of players committing to the Warriors during or after their visits.

While staff members can’t comment specifically on recruits until they’ve signed their National Letter of Intent, linebackers Noah Wily (Saint Louis) and Alika Cavaco-Amoy (Punahou) and Campbell offensive lineman Joshua Tavui were the latest to tweet out their commitments this past weekend. As reported by the Star-Advertiser’s Stephen Tsai, the Warriors also received commitments from Punahou lineman Tui Neau Muti, Kamehameha linebacker Nazaiah Caravallo and lineman James Milovale of Hartnell College during the summer recruiting push.

“When you look at our class and the recruits that we’re landing, a lot of it has to do not only with the coaches and the players but also to the organization of what Savannah has done,” Chang said.

But filling out the commitment list for the class of 2024 represents just a portion of the payoff for Reier.

“Knowing these kids are getting a family and they’re not just signing their life away to people that are only about business,” Reier said, “it just makes it feel like everything’s paid off and that we’re investing in kids’ futures and making a difference in that way.

“In a time when a lot relationships are through the phone or over social media, it’s very rewarding to get to know someone face to face and see their family background and all these different things that make them into the person they are and the athlete they are and learning who we’re getting when we’re recruiting these kids.”