HONOLULU (KHON2) — She’s already become one of the great coaches in University of Hawaii history.
Entering her 14th season as head coach of the Rainbow Wahine basketball program, Laura Beeman knows money can’t buy love, but it’s the name of the game in the new world of college athletics.
During her tenure, she has snagged seven conference regular-season and tournament titles, four Big West Coach of the Year awards and three trips to the NCAA tournament.
Head Coach Laura Beeman could have her pick of the offers from other schools that have rolled in since she built the Rainbow Wahine basketball team into power, but Hawaii is home.
Money is important. We all need money. No doubt about it. I’ve never really been a money driven person. I don’t think money creates happiness for you, and so being able to set roots down here with my family and being a massive part of the community, both with what Carla does and what I do, really hard to just pick up and leave when you know you’re affecting people in a positive way.
Laura Beeman, Rainbow Wahine basketball head coach
Beeman has coached in the WNBA and Pac-12, but said this place is different, as is college basketball since she got here.
With revenue sharing, NIL and the transfer portal, she knows resources are important, but doesn’t want to make her relationship with players transactional. The relationships with the team and the fans are what make Hawaii the home team.
“When we win, when we go to the NCAA and people are waiting for us at the airport and in the back lot, we feel that pride. I mean, you can literally feel it just travel across the ocean. I also know how much joy it brings me to have people here want to support our program, whether it’s $1 or, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to have someone say, I’m going to invest this in you. It’s so different here, because we’re so limited sometimes in our resources, and so that collaborative relationship that we really are Hawaii’s team, you just don’t get that anywhere else.”
She said she saw it first hand in 2015 with Shawna-Lei Kuehu’s chicken skin senior night.
“Those are the emotions, and I’ll get emotional right now. I was going through on her senior night because we were in the midst of that. To see and know what that young lady had endured, and here she is in the state of Hawaii is watching her graduate and the Stan is going crazy and she’s got the haku she’s got the lei and everything and the tears streaming down her face, why wouldn’t you want to play for that?” Beeman added.
“I don’t care how young we’re going to be this year, we’re going to be in the mix. That’s our job as coaches. Recruit the right kids. We got to coach them up quick this year. We’re young, but I think we have talent. So, you know, last check, I think there have been 20 postseason births out of this program from the time it began to today, and I have no intentions of stopping that number from growing.”
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KHON2 invites everyone to support Hawaii’s student athletes as we join the university for “Hawaii’s Team Drive,” a telethon and fundraiser.
The event is coming up on Tuesday, Sept. 9, during our newscasts. Stay with us for all the details on how you can help the home team.