New Wahine Basketball Coach

Former University of Hawai‘i women’s basketball player and assistant Dana Takahara-Dias has been selected as the school’s new head women’s basketball coach, athletics director Jim Donovan announced Thursday at a press conference in the Ed Wong Hospitality Room.

Takahara-Dias, a four-year UH letterwinner from 1984-88, is the program’s seventh head coach since becoming a varsity sport in 1974 and first woman head coach since Patsy Dung (1974-79).

“It is with great pleasure that I announce former Rainbow Wahine Dana Takahara-Dias as our new women’s basketball coach,” Donovan said. “She is a Rainbow Wahine at heart. She began as a walk-on in 1984, earned a scholarship, graduated from UH, and came back as an administrative assistant on former coach Vince Goo’s staff. She later went on to a successful high school coaching career at Moanalua and with Team Aloha and has honed her leadership skills with the City & County of Honolulu. She’s come back to the UH ‘ohana and will be a true role model for the young women of Hawai‘i.”

* * *

The days are like a whirlwind this summer for Dana Takahara-Dias. Often up before dawn and working until late into the night, she says it’s a balancing act, and she’s running on adrenaline.

“What is sleep?” she laughs.

* * *

New University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Wahine basketball head coach Dana Takahara-Dias knows you know her weaknesses.

She openly talks about her lack of college coaching experience. She concedes that she’s never been on the recruiting trail, trying to sell UH to 18-year-old high school basketball stars looking for the name recognition of a powerhouse program. She acknowledges she hasn’t been a full-time coach at any level in five years, most recently heading the Moanalua and Aloha All-Star high school teams.

But what Takahara-Dias lacks in experience, she makes up for in her unique familiarity with the Wahine basketball program and its history, her understanding of the complexities of the local community and her limitless energy and boundless enthusiasm for the promise and potential of UH hoops.