{"id":105806,"date":"2019-11-05T13:08:26","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T23:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=105806"},"modified":"2019-11-05T13:09:16","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T23:09:16","slug":"lau-uh-family-of-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/05\/lau-uh-family-of-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"Lau \u02bbohana current first Hawai\u02bbi family of sports"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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For the Lau ʻohana<\/span>, sports has provided a hard-earned path to life successes. Clockwise, from top left, Ezekiel, Daina, Leonard, Jordan, Dalen and Sarah.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Football player, volleyball player and soccer player are gathered around the TV<\/abbr>. So what sport are they watching? Surfing, of course.<\/p>\n

“If Zeke went to 糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr>, he probably would have ended up playing football,” says the football player, pointing to the 25-year-old wave rider on the screen. “Zeke” is professional surfer Ezekiel Lau<\/strong>, the Vans World Cup of Surfing defending champion. As accomplished as he is, however, Zeke is just one member of a remarkable sports loving family that includes three former University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at M\u0101noa student-athletes.<\/p>\n

The family patriarch, Leonard Lau<\/strong>, was a Rainbow Warrior wide receiver in the late 1980s. Mom Daina<\/strong> was a member of one of Coach Dave Shoji<\/strong>\u2019s most talented Rainbow Wahine volleyball teams. And daughter Sarah<\/strong> was a four-year standout for the 糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> Wahine soccer team. Each of them carries a special memory of their time in competitive college sports at 糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> M\u0101noa.<\/p>\n

For Leonard, it was being a part of Hawaiʻi<\/span>\u2019s historic 56-14 win in 1989 over archrival, the BYU<\/abbr> Cougars. “It was the first time [since 1973] that we beat them,” recalls Leonard, who graduated in 1990 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in psychology. “After the game, we ran around the stadium with the 糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> flag, celebrating with the fans. It was one of the best feelings I ever had as an athlete.”<\/p>\n

For Daina, playing for coaching legend Shoji in 1989 was a reward in itself. “He was an amazing coach,” says Daina, a 1991 graduate with a degree in business administration. “His knowledge of volleyball was at such a high level, and so was his ability to recruit. We had so many talented players then: Teee Williams<\/strong>, Karrie Trieschman<\/strong>, Cheri Boyer<\/strong>, Jaime Paet<\/strong>\u2026”<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Sarah, who graduated this past May with a degree in communications. For the budding model and aspiring sports broadcaster, the last five conference games of 2018, her senior year, hold a collective memory she will always cherish.<\/p>\n

Together with fellow senior co-captain Raisa Strom-Okimoto<\/strong>, “We really got the whole team on the same page, and we felt unstoppable. We trusted each other and weren\u2019t second-guessing ourselves. It was a great feeling.”<\/p>\n

Read more about the Lau family and their ties to 糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> M\u0101noa in the new edition of the 糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> Foundation Magazine<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/small>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lau family of athletes includes a wave rider, football receiver, volleyball player, soccer standout and more athletes in the making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[90,58,9,550],"class_list":["post-105806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-alumni","tag-athletics","tag-uh-manoa","tag-manoa-athletics","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105806"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105822,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105806\/revisions\/105822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}