Kaneohe, HI (May 6, 2011) – After 33 years of leading the athletics program that he created, Hawai'i Pacific University President Chatt G. Wright appeared in front of the HPU athletics community for the final time before his June 30th retirement. HPU also awarded the Sea Warrior Award to it top male a female athletes, Isaiah Guth from the men's soccer team and Kyra Pelayo from volleyball.
President Wright became President of Hawaii Pacific College on September 17, 1976. At that time, there were less than 100 students at then Hawai'i Pacific College. With several other downtown business schools, President Wright sought to find a way to set HPC apart from the rest. HPC thus established a basketball team in 1978-1979; today HPU boasts a 12 sport intercollegiate program. Under President Wright's leadership HPU has captured five national championships in three sports. Most recently, HPU has won the PacWest's Commissioner's Cup for the second straight year.
Guth was named the male Sea Warrior Award winner for leading a defense that was ranked 3rd in the conference and 41st nationally giving up just one goal per game and also putting up eight shutouts. He was one of only two people on the team to start every game, and he provided a lot of leadership in his senior year. Isaiah also was successful in the classroom being named the scholar-athlete for his team.
Pelayo was tabbed at the female Sea Warrior Award winner after she garnered post season awards such as All-American, All-Region, All-PacWest, and PacWest Libero of the year. She set the record for most digs in a season was ranked third nationally in digs per set. Due in large part to Kyra, HPU as a team won the statistical championship for digs per set. Kyra established herself as one of the leaders of the team, but not only from her efforts on the court but her efforts off the court in working with SAAC. Kyra is in good academic standing and helps out younger players as a coach at the club volleyball level.
The male scholar-athlete award was to Rylan Morihara from baseball who had the top male GPA of 3.96 spanning last spring through this fall semester. There was a four-way tie for the female scholar-athlete as Zora Vlckova, Sandra Wikstrom, and Aleksandra Stankovic from Women's Tennis and Jalisa Chongkee from women's soccer each had 4.0's.
