‘Like a rock’: Longtime HSC coach remembered for steadiness, humility

Rodney Hayashi • 1947-2016

Reid Yamamoto knew something special was in the air at Kokua Pool for the first workout his Hawaii Swim Club had after losing longtime assistant coach Rodney Hayashi.

"Our kids swam off the charts that day and (the University of Hawaii football team) won, I know he had something to do with that," said Yamamoto, who coached  for three decades with Hayashi, who died last week at age 69. "For the past couple days there have been rainbows over Kokua Pool. The day he passed or the day after there was this cloud formation that I've never, ever seen before in my life.

"So, I know that he's watching over his family, I want to say me, the team, everybody who has been a part of his life. I'm just waiting for that big moth to be parked in my garage because they say that people come back as big moths to check on how you're doing."

Yamamoto began his HSC coaching career in 1987, two years after Hayashi joined the staff.

"Rodney was a staple for the past 30-some-odd years and we've been together for almost that long," Yamamoto said. "He's been a part of all our successes, he's had a hand in all of our champion swimmers that came up through HSC."

The list of athletes Yamamoto and Hayashi helped develop is a who's who of Maui County swimmers.

"Cheyne Bloch, Caleb Rowe, Reece Kaya, Chase Bloch, his daughter Kristine Hayashi, Ema Suehiro, Aja Suehiro, Libby Matthews, Jen Cahill," Yamamoto said. "The list goes on and on. All college swimmers, went on to swim at the next level. Caleb and Cheyne went to Olympic trials, Jen was a former Boise State record-holder, Mountain West (Conference) champion. Cheyne Bloch, NCAA finalist; Caleb Rowe, NCAA finalist.

"It's just a huge loss, it kind of hurts my heart. Huge loss for Maui swimming as well as Hawaii swimming in general."

Yamamoto is also the swim coach for Maui High School and a former UH swimmer.

"We were at practice together every day -- that's like losing my right arm. It hurts a lot," Yamamoto said. "I just love coming to practice and we would talk about the day or UH or (Maui Interscholastic League) sports. You know, he loved Baldwin sports. I'm at Maui High, so it was kind of a battle. I'm just happy that I got to be a part of his life -- he taught me a lot."

Kristine Hayashi won four straight 100-yard breaststroke state titles for Baldwin from 1993 to 1996 before competing for the University of San Diego. Rodney Hayashi is also survived by his wife, Jeannie, sons Rick and Kyle Hayashi, daughter Kelly (Hayashi) Mokiao and eight grandchildren.

"We always heard over the years what a great man he was and the important influence he had on many, many, many children that I can't even begin to name," said Kristine Hayashi, who is now a special-education teacher at Maui High. "I help with Hawaii Swim Club learn-to-swim program and kids that he coached are now bringing their kids to that program and they talk about what a wonderful man he was.

"As a child you kind of take it for granted. You're like, 'Yeah. yeah, yeah, my dad's great or whatever.' But it's cool -- it's been a hard two weeks. How he impacted people, it was crazy. He was such a humble man. He influenced thousands of kids and it's cool."

Kristine Hayashi said her 13-year-old daughter, Jordynn Brown, was especially close to her grandfather.

"He was her best friend, she was his best friend, the two were kind of inseparable," Kristine Hayashi said. "I asked her: 'How have you been so strong?' She said: 'He would want me to be.' "

Matthews, Rowe, the Blochs and Kristine Hayashi all excelled with a breaststroke technique Rodney Hayashi developed on his own, despite never swimming competitively.

"He started a breaststroke dynasty, you could say," Matthews said. "I moved from the Mainland when I was 9 and he was my first coach at HSC. I was not a breaststroker when I arrived and I became a breaststroker in those years that I was swimming with him."

Rowe, a former California-Berkeley standout and silver medalist at the World University Games in 2005, is now a lawyer for the County of Maui corporation council. He was a member of Baldwin's 2000 state-championship team, the first in swimming and diving from the MIL.

"My parents enrolled me in swimming when I was 6 years old and right away he was the coach assigned to me," Rowe said. "From learning how to swim, I was chubby and I was loud and I had way too much energy. I was quite a handful, but he was really, really patient with me.

"I'm a very stubborn person. I don't think that I'm particularly easy to coach, so I don't think that I made it easy for him, but he never gave up on me."

Matthews, who was a state champion in the 100 breaststroke and 200 individual medley for Seabury Hall before swimming collegiately at Brown, knows she is part of the legacy Hayashi leaves behind.

"His presence was sort of like a rock," she said. "He was very even-keeled and calm and inclusive of all the swimmers. We would all be able to goof off to a certain extent but because we respected him so much we kind of kept ourselves in check when we were swimming under him. I think that was a really special quality that he had -- he created strong teams and individual swimmers."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com