After setter Jakob Thelle completed one of the most decorated college careers in Hawaii volleyball history in 2023, he left the islands … but not the aloha spirit.
During his rookie season for Volley Lube of the Italian Volleyball League, Thelle flashed the shaka sign while navigating traffic.
“In Italy, people drive like nuts,” Thelle said. “I keep aloha with me. I throw out the shakas.”
While he feasted on pizza and pasta, he craved poke and sticky rice.
“Even though they had some poke shops, it was never the real poke that I’m used to,” Thelle said. “In Italy, they call it a poke bowl but it’s not even close. It’s all green. Lots of veggies. I was looking forward to coming back (to Hawaii) to eat poke every day. And kulolo. And fish and poi, especially that combo.”
During this break — Thelle will be joining a team in France next season — he returned to Hawaii to help former teammates with volleyball clinics. At Saturday’s session at the Beyond Ball Hawaii facility in Kailua, Thelle led drills and offered tips to the participants.
“Community is everything,” Thelle said of accepting invitations to work with youths at clinics run by former teammates James Anastassiades and Filip Humler. “I learned in Italy, I missed that community in Hawaii. Coming back here and keeping those connections close was something I was looking forward to all year long.”
It was connections that led to Thelle signing with the Rainbow Warriors in 2018. His high school coach, Hendrik Mol, was a former UH middle blocker. “He connected me to (UH head coach Charlie) Wade,” Thelle said. “I told Charlie, ‘whatever you can give me (in scholarship money), I’ll take. We’re going to make this work.’”
Thelle used savings, help from his family, and academic scholarships to cover the rest of his college expenses.
“The last thing I expected when I came to Hawaii was that I would find myself,” Thelle said. “I found myself with the people and the culture of Hawaii and the community you represent as a student-athlete. When I got to interact with the community and got to know the people, that’s when I was able to be myself. I really kept those ties.”
Thelle twice was named to the All-America academic team. He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and a master’s in urban planning at UH.
In 2023, Thelle was named the AVCA national player of the year. He led the Warriors to the NCAA championship match four times in five years — the 2020 postseason was canceled because of the pandemic — and titles in 2021 and 2022. Thelle said the 2021 season had a “surreal” feel because of the pandemic-related restrictions on spectator attendance.
“That was a weird year because we only had cardboard ‘fans’ in the stands and the fake crowd noise,” Thelle said. “For me, the real championship was in 2022, when we had fans with us at UCLA supporting us all the way to the win.”
Thelle eagerly accepted an offer to play for Volley Lube.
“I got a chance to go to one of my favorite teams in the world,” Thelle said. “When they came knocking at the door, I wasn’t going to say ‘no.’ To experience the highest level in the professional level early, it was something I couldn’t say ‘no’ to.”
Despite limited playing time as a backup, Thelle said, the experience was beneficial.
“You’re playing with and against Olympic champions,” he said. “I think I tested myself in a really big way.”
Thelle added that Italy’s crowds “are unreal, but nothing compared to Hawaii’s. Hawaii has the best fans in the world. I really got to see that in real life. In Italy, we have 4,000 people (at matches). They’re loud, but it’s nothing close to what we get at the Stan Sheriff Center. That’s the top league in the world, and when they can’t even have something close to Hawaii, then Hawaii, for sure, is top of the world.”
Thelle is expected to get more playing time with France’s Le Plessis-Robinson team. His long-range goals are for Norway to qualify for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and to enter the food-service industry.
“The first day when I came to Hawaii, I had poke,” he said. “For me, it’s been a life changer in my diet. I want to open up a poke shop in the future. That is my long-time goal to open up a poke shop in Hawaii and to really share my experience with poke.”
