This oral history interview is a project of the Historical Committee of the Outrigger Canoe Club. The legal rights of this material remain with the Outrigger Canoe Club. Anyone wishing to reproduce it or quote at length from it should contact the Historical Committee of the Outrigger Canoe Club. The reader should be aware that an oral history document portrays information as recalled by the interviewee. Because of the spontaneous nature of this kind of document, it may contain statements and impressions that are not factual.
Part 2
An Interview by J. Ward Russell
June 17, 1995
JWR: Today is Sunday, June 17, 1995, Kamehameha Day. I am Ward Russell (JWR) a member of the Outrigger Canoe Club Historical Committee. One of the on-going projects of our committee is to conduct oral interviews of the Club’s long-time and most prominent members. Today, it is my privilege and pleasure to interview Marilyn Haine (MH), widow of Tom Haine. Tom was a distinguished past president of our Club serving in that capacity on two separate occasions. He was also an outstanding all-round athlete winning State, National and Olympic honors.
Marilyn, herself, and her two children have had also distinguished careers in social and athletic activities. Because of their family’s unique distinction and outstanding athletic achievements and many contributions to the welfare of our Club, it had been our plan to interview Tom and Marilyn together. Unfortunately fate, decreed otherwise (Tom passed away September 10, 1994), but, fortunately, Marilyn is here today. We are in the Club’s Boardroom on a beautiful spring morning. Good morning, Marilyn.
MH: Good morning.
JWR: I would like to start by asking questions about you and Tom. First when were you married?
MH: We were married December 21, 1957.
JWR: Where were you married?
MH: In the Wayfarer’s Chapel, the all glass chapel in Southern California.
JWR: When did you first meet Tom?
MH: I met him at San Jose State in 1954.
JWR: What grades were you in?
MH: I was a junior and he was a senior and I had just transferred there from the University of California, Berkeley. I changed schools to get my teaching degree and I met him right away.
JWR: Where were you born?
MH: Petaluma, California
JWR: Petaluma – and Tom, where was he born?
MH: In Minot, North Dakota.
JWR: North Dakota … and you met at San Jose State. How long after you met were you married – after you graduated?
MH: Oh, yes. We both graduated from college and then he had military service to go in to, the Air Cadets, so we went together for three years and then we were married.
JWR: After that, did he go on active duty?
MH: Yes, he had active duty … he had a year and a half of jet training and then he had, oh, I think, three months active duty here in the Islands, and then he was in the reserves for twenty years. He was an F-4 jet pilot.
JWR: Did you go into teaching after ….?
MH: Yes, after I graduated I taught school for six months in California while he was in the Cadets and then we were married and then I came over here right away and I taught at Punahou for two years.
JWR: You both came over here together?
MH: Yes.
JWR: When was that?
MH: Oh, right after we were married – December 30th, I think it was. And the fun thing was, we weren’t on the same plane, I came on a commercial plane and he came on military. He didn’t think he would get here until a couple of days after I did, so we were at the airport and his mom met me and said, “Let’s have a drink and celebrate your coming home”. I looked over to my mother-in-law and said, “Doesn’t that look like Tommy over there?” and she looked, and it was Tom! [Laugh] He had surprised me.
JWR: What a great surprise! Did you say you taught at Punahou?
MH: Yes, fifth grade for two years.
JWR: When did you first join the Outrigger Canoe Club?
MH: Oh, that was immediate, because Tommy had been a member for quite a while.
JWR: Oh, he had!
MH: Oh, yes. Oh yes, he was a member from the time he was eleven or twelve.
JWR: Oh, had he? When did he first come to Hawaii?
MH: Oh, it was right after World War II or maybe it was during … it might have been have been during World War II.
JWR: Oh, then he moved here with his parents?
MH: Yes.
JWR: They were not from Hawaii originally?
MH: No. No. His Mom’s husband, who wasn’t Tommy’s dad, was in the military, and then he went into insurance and decided to go into business here.
JWR: He had been a member as a youngster, then.
MH: Oh, yes, right. He found volleyball and was playing around with it and going to the Club as a non-member and finally, it was probably Cline Mann who sponsored him to join.
JWR: . . . and many others.
MH: Yes, that’s right.
JWR: Had he achieved any athletic notoriety by the time you, er …
MH: Oh, by the time I met him he’d been an All-American swimmer and was going to Monterey Junior College, where he was an All America swimmer. He was on the football team also even though he’d never played football at all in high school [Laugh]. It was kind of interesting, he was only about 5’6’ and 135 lbs in high school.
JWR: Really! [Laughter]
MH: He was a late bloomer. He grew in his first year in college.
JWR: He sure did
MH: Yeah. He played football, basketball, water polo and swimming ….
JWR: Oh, my. I was correct when I said all around, wasn’t I?
MH: Yes.
JWR: Can you tell me a little about what Tom’s interests were when he joined? How did he become so prominently active in the Club’s programs?
MH: I think he enjoyed all the sports, and he paddled and he surfed. He did all the water sports, you know like my children do, and volleyball was his main love and I think he finally … the Club was so good to him and, you know, they would send him on trips and always sponsored the teams, whatever it was and finally he just felt he needed to give back something to the Club. So this is why when they asked him the first time to be on the Board he said “yes”, very happily said ‘yes’ and was president twice and then they asked him to be on the Board again. So it was nice that he could ‘pay back’ to the Club, because he got so much out of it. His mother had some health problems and a few husbands, so the Club was really his family.
JWR: Did Tom have any brothers and sisters?
MH: No. He was an only child.
JWR: It was a second home, then.
MH: Yes, it definitely was. It’s our home now, too. It is our home away from home.
JWR: I know you have some things here today about Tom’s contributions, recognitions … Can you enlighten me about some of the things you have?
MH: Well, most of them are just articles. There are some very tender ones. Cindy Luis wrote, I won’t be able to read it, you’ll have to put it in and, oh, this was a nice one. Our daughter paddles in the Molokai race and they dedicated the last canoe race to Tommy. The article says, “An oar for Dad”. It was cute and they all wore these shirts that said, “Daddy could do it”.
JWR: Daddy was really an institution.
MH: Yeah, he was. This one, I don’t have my glasses, but it is so very tender because it talks about his sensitivity. I’d like to leave these with you, make sure I get them back. This one was when everybody went out in canoes, we had tons of canoes, paddleboards, and sailboats and anything that could float in the water, people went out on … and this is a tender picture, this was when he was older and you could just see that he was contemplating, you know, if he had played OK.
JWR: Uh-uh. I’ll tell you what we’ll do, these are very interesting articles, I would like to make copies of these and append them to the interview because they are very, very interesting reading. Actually as far these interviews are concerned it is interesting for people to read them rather than to spend the time listening to them, and with appendages it will make them that more interesting. Can you recall the number of committees that Tom may have served on? [Laugh]There were many.
MH: Yes. I wouldn’t know all there were so many … he was on the Board of Directors. He was on the House Committee … oh, I know he was on quite a few committees and it always ended up that he would be the president.
JWR: Let me ask you a question. I know that he served on some of the committees that were concerned with the move to the new Club. What was his attitude with respect to the move?
MH: It was difficult to move because we had always been down there and then the sad thing was when we first moved to the new Club the volleyball committee had worked very hard to be sure we had volleyball courts and bring in the sand, and if you remember, the weather was awful the first six months, or maybe nine months, and hardly anybody used the volleyball courts after all the expense of putting them in. So he did get quite a bit of flack over that. Of course, now they are used all the time, but it just happened to be the weather was bad and they were just different courts. It was a combination of things, but they weren’t used, so there were a few people who were huhu.
JWR: When he went to the Olympics, what year was that?
MH: 1968.
JWR: It was 1968 and he was captain of the U.S. team. Did you go?
MH: Sure.
JWR: Tell me about that.
MH: Oh, we had a wonderful time. He went for a month of training in Tahoe, and I remember it was cute, the night before they went to Denver to get their uniforms, he called, he was voted captain, and he was all excited about that, because he was the oldest guy on the team, but he was as good as any of them. Anyway, we met in Mexico City and I stayed with family friends, Val and Mel Lundahl, and … you remember Lundahl, he was number two man at Kodak, they had a lovely home. The taxicab drivers could never find the home because everyone had drivers in those days, you know everybody had money and so the taxicabs weren’t used to finding homes in this lovely area, and we got lost many times going back to the Lundahl home. Anyway, we just had a great time in Mexico City. I was asked for autographs as much as Tommy, and I would say, “I’m his wife” but they wanted me to sign [Laugh], so I wrote say, “I’m his wife” on it. USA really played well. They ended up in fifth place, and the first match they played was Russia, and they beat Russia. I yelled so loud I couldn’t talk hardly for the rest of the time, but it was very, very exciting. And they then had a very close match with, I believe it was Romania or Poland, I can’t remember which. They had a chance to win that but they didn’t. The United States played very well, and Tommy played well. It was a very exciting thing for both of us.
JWR: Did he earn any first team honor or anything like that?
MH: No, nobody in the fifth place usually does. That was when we were at odds with Russia so it was quite exciting to beat them.
JWR: You went back to the National Championships on a number of occasions, didn’t you?
MH: Well, I played in five but I went back to almost all of the Nationals, uh-uh, yes. We just got back Sunday from Boston they had the Hundredth Anniversary and they dedicated the Nationals to Tommy. It was very nice.
JWR: Well, now where are most of the National Championships held?
MH: All over the United States in a different city every time. This was Boston, before it was Kansas City, and Tennessee and Reno, and next year they will be in Dallas, in a different city every year. What they do now is wonderful. They have the Nationals in a convention center so we are able to have thirty-three courts on one floor. It’s a wonderful perspective; you can watch whatever game you want instead of having to go to different buildings. They have nice seating and they have a floor that they can roll out. It’s kind of a rubberized floor and Tommy always said it didn’t hurt as much to jump on it. You know some floors are so hard it hurts. These convention centers have been a wonderful thing for the Nationals.
JWR: We have covered the National scene, the Olympic scene, how about Hawaii?
MH: Oh, well, he won practically everything in Hawaii [Laugh]. I mean there was a time a time, way in the beginning, they used to have hard court doubles and sand doubles. Way in the beginning he and Pete Velasco won, and then I think it was Tommy and Jim Beardmore who won the Junior-Senior tournaments. I remember Tommy kept that picture in his wallet for years, it was always a neat thing. [Laugh] Then after that he won with Billy Cross, Paul McLaughlin, Bobby Daniels, and many others. He won the State title for years and years, and he won the Kane-Wahine with me, I think for ten or twelve years.
JWR: He was amazing
MH: He was a fabulous athlete and person.
JWR: Are there any other recollections…?
MH: Oh, in the beginning part, you mentioned our children. I would like to talk a bit about them. I think they learned so much from Tommy. They do have athletic abilities and they have his competitiveness also. He was very gentle when he taught them, he didn’t push them. He taught them the right things and, oh, this is interesting … The other day this young man came up to me and said, “You know everybody called him “Daddy’. Daddy really taught me some special etiquette about volleyball. You know when you play doubles if you are ahead you always serve to the stronger person. On the Mainland, they don’t do that. They want to win so badly they just … and the same way in the Kane-Wahine tournament. It’s different now but a long time ago they didn’t allow the man to hit on the women. You know there was just some gentleness that Hawaii had in their competition that was special, you know. There were some things… I just loved the idea that when you are ahead you served the stronger person, it was just an unwritten courtesy unwritten law, whatever, but anyway this young man said how much he appreciated all he had learned from Tommy. Many young people have said this to me. Tommy had a special way of not saying, here, I am going to show you how to do it but just kind of gentle, you know just sort of suggesting that maybe you could do this or that, and he coached at Punahou one year. He did teach a lot of the people here very, very much about volleyball, not only the physical part of it but the emotion and the mental part of it.
JWR: Well, I always had some interesting encounters with Tommy, they occurred at Board meetings or the locker room; we were always joshing each other. I had a tremendous amount of respect for him. Anything else you can add to Tom’s athletic activities?
MH: No. Mainly years ago he was one of the few who had a substantial job. When he did go to the Olympics most of those young men, well they were ten years younger than Tommy, but they, oh, kind of worked at night in restaurants, or they worked in parking lots, that type of job and Tommy was a bank executive. I was always very proud that he had such a fine job and still trained and put time and effort into his athletic interests.
JWR: That was a distinguished accomplishment, he was a successful businessman and an outstanding athlete and didn’t let either go to his head. He was very humble.
MH: He was a jet pilot at the same time, and daddy and husband.
JWR: Tell me about his business career.
MH: Oh, it wasn’t probably that colourful, but he seemed to moved up quite rapidly. He was at First Hawaiian Bank and he did enjoy his last few years as manager of the Kaimuki branch. It was just a nice home family kind of branch. He brought in millions of deposits and so forth and they were very complimentary to him there, and the nice thing was he had good help and he could get off at lunch. It was very close to the Outrigger and he could come down and play noon volleyball. He was five minutes from the Outrigger and five minutes from home. It was the perfect place for him to have his last job.
JWR: Well, now how about you? You’ve been pretty active in the Club’s programs.
MH: Yeah. I paddled for, I guess, thirty-eight years.
JWR: Thirty-eight years!
MH: Thirty-seven or thirty-eight, yes. [Laugh]
JWR: You are not paddling now? You have given it up?
MH: I finally retired. [Laugh]
JWR: What crews did you paddle on?
MH: Well, my very first year I paddled Novice, and that year I was moved up to senior Women’s for the States, and then I paddled Senior Women the whole time until, starting maybe nine years ago, they finally had age group paddling and I went into the 45 and older group, we won the State championship for seven years in a row and here it was 45 and older and our average age was sixty-two. [Laughter] We felt pretty proud that we could do…
JWR: You went undefeated for such a long time.
MH: Yes, we did. And the fun thing, the very first race we won by almost half the course, and we kept looking back to see if we had done something wrong, where are the other boats [laugh] but then as the years passed other crews got closer and closer and closer and last year we were second, most of the time.
JWR: I had the pleasure of watching your races over a long period. You had an outstanding paddling career. I know what I wanted to ask you. You were active before the Club moved down here and you’ve been active since we’ve been here. Incidentally you are first woman, married woman, of the Club that I have interviewed; the other ones have been single. I’d like your perspective of what has happened as a result of the move. What are your impressions, has it improved, has it grown?
MH: Well, the long view here is we’ve grown, I think, and the longer we are here everybody realizes what a fine move it was because Waikiki is just a zoo. I remember at the old Club we had to park on the Ala Wai. We had no money, or we had very little money and we had the children [Laugh] and we had the MG and we’d stuff Kisi down into the bottom of the MG and Marc in the middle, and then we’d have to have a bassinet or crib with us and a diaper bag and all this packed into the car. And anyway we parked it on the Ala Wai and had to walk all the way across to the Outrigger, that was difficult. That was one of the big pluses of parking here.
JWR: Did you surf much?
MH: No. No, I kept running into people [Laugh]. I really didn’t get into it and then after a couple of years our family came along and I really didn’t have the time, you know.
JWR: I surfed a lot with Tom; I know he loved to surf.
MH: He did love of surf, yes, he enjoyed it very much and both our kids did. Did you see this picture on the cover of the Outrigger? (The club’s monthly magazine)
JWR: Yes.
MH: Isn’t that neat? Oh, I love it, yeah.
JWR: Yes, it’s terrific, it’s a beautiful shot.
MH: It is. The color and everything is so beautiful.
JWR: The picture was on the last edition, let’s see, was it June?
MH: I think so because it just came.
JWR: Now, about the kids, tell me a little about their activities. I know they have been very active in the athletic programs of the Club.
MH: I think they learned to swim when they were about one year old because they were always down at the beach, and the moms would sit along the edge of the water and the kids would just play in the water, and Marc was always funny. He’d swallow the water because he’d say, “Mommy I’m breathing, Mommy I’m breathing under water”.[Laugh] but anyway they just got used to the water very, very quickly and I think by the age of three I have pictures of them on surfboards, you know, with us pushing them on the waves. All through Punahou, they didn’t have sports in the junior school at that time, but they played volleyball here at the Outrigger on the baby court and surfed and so forth. Then at Punahou Marc played volleyball all four years and soccer all four years, and Kisi played volleyball and she was a State champion swimmer. Also, she played baseball and soccer. [Laugh] but that all stems from direction at the Outrigger; they just had a chance to develop their physical skills.
JWR: They both went from first grade to twelfth grade at Punahou.
MH: Kindergarten.
JWR: Kindergarten, oh my!
MH: They both went thirteen years.
JWR: Then they went on to college.
MH: Yes, both of them went to college; Marc went to San Diego State and Kisi went to Stanford. Marc had a partial scholarship so did Kisi, so that was very nice.
JWR: What did they do in college?
MH: Well, Marc played! [Laughter] No, he played volleyball; he was on the volleyball team. He was the captain of the team and Kisi was captain of the Stanford team for two years.
JWR: I’ve always known her as Kisi, but what is her regular name?
MH: Kristin and Marc – he couldn’t really say it, we wanted to call her Kristy and we’d say well, you know “Kristy”, and he’d say “Kisi”. Anyway it just stuck in there with him, and my family was kind of horrified but as we all know how she is and it’s a kind of fun name for her. I like nicknames anyway.
JWR: They are great kids.
MH: Yeah. They’ve been fabulous.
JWR: They are both still active in the programs, they are both paddling?
MH: Yes, they are both paddling in the short distances now, and both will be paddling Molokai. Marc just got back from the Nationals. He played on the 35s first and they were second and he was an All American.
JWR: He takes after his father.
MH: Yes.
JWR: And Kisi, she has been very active
MH: In volleyball, in paddling, in surfing and oh, maybe ten years ago she was voted the outstanding water lady in the State of Hawaii, which was really a nice honor.
JWR: It’s a remarkable family, it’s very unique, it’s something we’ve wanted to do and I am glad to have this opportunity to do this interview. Do you recall any specific honors Tom received in his athletic career?
MH: The bank honored him being a top athlete. He was always known that’s why I brought these (referring to articles and clippings). I think one of these say how many times he was All-American at the Nationals and it was many, many times… oh, and he was inducted into the U.S National Volleyball Hall of Fame, the first person from Hawaii to be inducted into the Hall of Fame ….
JWR: Oh, really.
MH: …. this year we went to the Hall of Fame on Memorial Day and there were about thirty of us and we sang some Hawaiian songs and had a Hawaiian prayer and cried a little bit. We had lei and flowers for Tommy and put them on his picture. It was really a very tender moment.
JWR: Oh, sure!
MH: Oh, and this is funny. [Laugh] at the Nationals the lights went out in the gym, and it was the finals, the last day of the tournament and everybody was kind of teasing that Tommy was teed off that he couldn’t play in this year’s Nationals so he turned the lights off and wouldn’t let anybody else play. [Laughter] We thought that was kind of fun, you know, to be able to joke about it because everybody there said they felt his presence at the Nationals because he had been going for so many years.
JWR: Well, the Club’s going to miss him and I know you and the kids miss him. What is Marc doing now,
MH: Marc owns two companies; he owns a carpet cleaning company and a recycling company. He’s an accountant so he really runs the companies and is doing very well. He’s very happy to be home in the islands.
JWR: Yes, I know, I know. I talked to him before he left and he was not happy about going and is overjoyed to be back.
MH: He is. He said, “Mom how come I ever left” He’s an Island boy.
JWR: He sure is.
MH: Both of them are.
JWR: What’s Kisi doing?
MH: She’s teaching school, she was with the Special Olympics for six years and really enjoyed that and traveled quite a bit but she missed the kind of … she was doing more administrative work as long as she was there. She missed the closeness with the kids and so she’s been coaching volleyball teams and then teaching seventh grade.
JWR: Where about?
MH: At Kailua Intermediate school and she’s really good at it, I think. You know some people don’t like seventh and eighth grades. They are difficult years lots of times, but she’s real cute. She says, “Mom, I just tell them this is how it is going to be and they believe me”. [Laugher] I can just see that happening there. They do believe her, this is how it is.
JWR: We just changed to the other side of the tape and when we left off we were talking about Kisi and what she is doing at the present time. Have you any more to add about the youngsters?
MH: Um, no. I was just trying to find the article that was so… I think this is it, yes.. It says, “Hawaii has lost another world class athlete, Tom “Daddy” Haine. He was elected to the All American volleyball team eighteen times, won a silver medal in the ’63 Pan American Games and a gold medal in the ’67 Pan American Games … he was a fixture on the courts at the Outrigger Canoe Club; his achievements may never be matched, but was admired for his decency and warmth as well as his skill. Haine was rich in volleyball honors but far richer in the number of opponents who respected him as a player and were proud to call him a friend”.
JWR: Now let’s see, oh my, this has been fine. I have enjoyed it. I want to ask you more question and probably when we conclude I will think of them.
MH: I know, I will too.
JWR: Well, we can always add, but before we do terminate this interview I will give you the opportunity to think for a minute about any of the things you might wasn’t to add. It’s very interesting to get this perspective to Tom. It’s the first time I have ever interview someone about somebody else … actually, you both are the subject of this interview.
MH: It would have been fun to do it together, we would have been bragging about each other.
JWR: Absolutely, you know I thought about it afterwards, maybe I should have asked you to bring the kids today.
MH: Well, they did have to race, and both of them are coaching as well as racing.
JWR: I think it worked out very well.
MH: I just feel very glad that Tom and I had forty wonderful years together.
JWR: How many?
MH: Forty
JWR: Forty years.
MH: And, that’s what I have to keep thinking about, how good our life was. I feel he is with us all.
JWR: Well, you know you were both the envy of an awful lot of people because you had such a wonderful relationship.
MH: Yes, we did have a very close relationship, and we truly enjoyed each other, you know.
JWR: You did!
MH: Yes, of course we loved each other deeply, but we just enjoyed each other, we were definitely best friends.
JWR: What are you doing now? Are you working or….?
MH: Well, I just finished, just before we went to the Nationals, writing over three thousand ‘Thank you’ letters to people who had written in about Tommy.
JWR: Three thousand!
MH: Over three thousand, yes. And I just wanted to write something. Everybody wrote such nice little anecdotes and things that I felt I wanted to answer, specifically answer them back showing how much I appreciated their little stories and so forth, and I could only do about five or six a day, but it was important to do it. People kept saying, ‘get something printed’ and I said I can’t, these people have taken the time to write me, I need to write them back personally, so I was very busy doing that for eight or nine months.
JWR: Well, I feel honored because …
MH: You were one of them, yeah. [Laugh]
JWR: I really appreciated it.
MH: Oh, thank you. Many, many people have come to me and said, “I got your note saying how kind it was that I did write”, so it makes me feel good. I did it for Tommy. It showed how much people like him.
JWR: Yeah, it sure did, I think I mentioned in my note to you that he was one of those responsible for getting me the Life membership.
MH: Oh, that’s right, I do remember that. It was very nice and he did some other things for people. One day a lady had on a nice suit, it was kind of long shorts which was the style, and still is – but anyway she was being removed from the dining room and she happened to go past Tommy who was having lunch and she laughingly commented to Tommy that she was being ejected and he was horrified, because this lady had on a jacket and heels, I mean she looked lovely, so the next thing she knew she was seated right back in the dining room. It wasn’t really short shorts she had on, it was a nice suit, but the manager was …
JWR: Were they really that strict?
MH: Oh, they were in the beginning. Anyway, he would do little things like that that were part of him… he never thought anything about it. That was something special about him, too, his many kind deeds and so forth. It was just natural for him to do it, you know it wasn’t that he wanted credit for it or say, “Hey, I’m a big time person I’ll do it”; it just was natural, he helped people.
JWR: And, he had a delightful sense of humor.
MH: Oh, it was great. He kidded people unmercifully. [Laugh]
JWR: I was a recipient!
MH: I certainly was! He would often call me ‘Bullet’- bullet was a sarcastic way of saying I was slow because bullets were fast. I was always racing around with the kids. He always said, “You have all day to get ready to go out”. You know there would be a wet diaper or a phone call or something as we were about to go out, and he’d say, “come on, Bullet, let’s go”. That was a little joke of his.
JWR: Well, is there any other thing you can think of? (Interruption by friend of Marilyn at the door inquiring into how much longer we would be.)
MH: Leslie Mattice has been so fine. (Referring to her friend)
JWR: This is a group you associate with?
MH: Oh, yes, we play bridge together. I’ve been playing quite a bit of bridge, and I work in my yard. I have two big dogs and they are wonderful company for me. Kisi has moved back, she is renting out her condominium and moved home with me. That’s really nice company. That’s special for her, I said, “oh, you don’t need to do it” she said, oh, mom, I want to”.
JWR: Who are the members of your bridge group?
MH: Oh, May Balding, Leslie Mattice, Barbara Lynn, Billie Baird, and Dolors Judd; we play cards and tennis, too, you know. There’s a group, May, Billie, Barbara and myself that started in 1959 playing tennis in the morning and bridge in the afternoon. We took all of our kids with us [Laugh], but that is still going on, we still have those friendships.
JWR: That leads up to something else. Did Tommy have a particular group of people he associated with?
MH: Yeah, he… Billy Cross was so close and Jack Mattice was always so close and you know, Tommy kept playing and most of the other older guys didn’t, especially here at the beach. So he continued to play with Randy Shaw and all those at Outrigger who were about ten years younger than he was, but he was always just very good friends with them all. He didn’t really have a ‘gang’ he hung out with, he just loved coming to the Outrigger though, coming right to the volleyball courts.
JWR: Tom would work out during the day, he would be here.
MH: I know [Laugh] he sure would be.
JWR: This has been great, anything else you would like to add?
MH: I would like to hope, we did get some wonderful contributions from people, I think it is quite a bit over $40,000 and I would like to take just a small part of that, or whatever is needed to be sure that there is always a qualified attendant in the weight room. Because people like you know you were very fortunate to have a doctor who happened to be right near you when you were down, and I think it saved your life …
JWR: No question about it
MH: … I am not saying that Tommy, you see, there was nobody in the weight room, an attendant wasn’t there. I feel that’s wrong. Of course, I would never accuse anyone, but it was wide open for any kind of suit, because you should always have an attendant in the weight room ….
JWR: Particular in the weight room.
MH: Yes, with all those machines and just like what happened to Tommy they had to race down to the life guard stand and luckily Don was there, I mean he could have been out getting gas. He came zooming up, but it took seven minutes and that’s too long; but if somebody had … obviously it wasn’t supposed to be. Do you know Mike Morena (Miranda)?
JWR: Who?
MH: Mike Morena, he’s a policeman.
JWR: Yeah, yeah.
MH: He knows all about CPR. He and Tommy used to work out together. He said, “I was so mad, I’m always there with Tommy, I know CPR and could have helped him. He said he got waylaid somehow and said, I guess I wasn’t supposed to be there. Well, Tommy wouldn’t have been good in a wheelchair or as half a man.
JWR: No, no.
MH: He would not have wanted to … and I think the doctors feel that had he been given oxygen a little sooner that maybe he would have lived, but it would have been in a very uncomfortable way.
JWR: Yeah. I was fortunate.
MH: Yes, yes you were suppose to … I think there is a plan.
JWR: I was not on the Club premises, I was across the …
MH: Yes, I remember, I saw you over there.
JWR: Oh, really?
MH: Uh-uh.
JWR: Oh, my!
MH: I remember seeing a few people around and someone giving you CPR.
JWR: I have to tell you a little anecdote about that. One of the concerns doctors had about me was that I was under CPR for a long period and my heart wasn’t beating for some 45 to 50 minutes. They were concerned about brain damage. During my recovery I had to see my cardiologist at the Honolulu Medical Group and every day he would ask, “What day is this” “Do you know where you are”? I always gave him the right answers. Well, about the end of the second week I came in as usual and he said, “Do you know what day this is”? I gave him the right answer. Then he said, “Do you know where you are “? “ Of course” I replied. “Where are you”? He asked. I looked him in the eye and said, I’m at Straub Clinic.” He said, “There is nothing wrong with you, you S.O.B.”
MH: I love it. Oh, that was cute.
JWR: Marilyn, this has been just great.
MH: Well you have been so tender with me.
JWR: So if there is anything you want to add.
MH: I can’t think of anything.
JWR: You may think of it later.
MH: I really can’t think of anything.
JWR: If you want to add anything, you may think of it later, we can always have another session anytime.
MH: When it is transcribed can you add to it in writing or do you have it on tape.
JWR: You can add an appendix, we’d be happy to have that. If you’d like to have it recorded as part of the interview, we can always do that, too, either way you want it. This, from my point of view has been an excellent interview.
MH: Oh, well thank you.
JWR: I hope you have enjoyed it.
MH: Oh, I have. It is hard, but …
JWR: I really appreciate your kokua. Thank you very, very much.
MH: Thank you, Ward, it’s just an honor to be able to do this.
JWR: Many, many thanks. Much Aloha.
Tom ‘Daddy’ Haine, 61, dies; Isle volleyball great
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
Olympian Tom Haine, affectionately known as “Daddy” to friend and volleyball players around the country, died Saturday night (September 10, 1994). Haine, 61, suffered a massive heart attack Tuesday. A Roosevelt graduate, Haine had been a fixture on Hawaii volleyball courts since 1947, when he picked the game up on the beach at Outrigger Canoe Club. He became one of the world’s finest players. Haine was captain of the 1968 U.S. Olympic team that was the first to defeat a Soviet team. He won a gold medal at the 1967 Pan Am Games and a silver in 1963. His gift for the game and personable nature were the inspiration for many junior players around OCC, where he was twice president and always known as “Daddy”. The nickname started with his wife, Marilyn, it caught on because of Haine’s imposing amiable presence and ferocious success on a volleyball court. “Dad” thrived on competition” said Marc, his son. “He taught many of us to play hard to win. Yet being honest and having good court etiquette were above all”. In 1956, Haine played in his first U.S. Volleyball Association (USVBA) national tournament. He never missed another, earning All-American honors some 35 times, including last May. He was named a “USVBA All-Time Great Player” in 1990. The USVBA said then, “Think Hawaii, think volleyball, and you think of Tom Haine. A year later Haine was the first Hawaii player inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Mass.
Off the sand and out of the gym, Haine was vice president and branch manager of First Hawaiian Bank’s Kaimuki branch. He joined First Hawaiian in 1958. He served in the Air Force and Hawaii Air National Guard as a jet pilot, attaining the rank of major. He also was on the Nissan Hall of Honor selection committee. Haine surfed and paddled, and played football, basketball and water polo at San Jose State, where he was also an All-America swimmer. But volleyball was always his passion. It was an enthusiasm his family shared; Marilyn played competitively and Marc and daughter Kisi captained their college teams.
“Dad” has made his family and friends very proud throughout his life”. Marc said, “He was a pillar of strength from which we can always draw upon”. Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 7 a.m. at OCC. In lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Foundation (ODKF) to establish the Tom Haine Memorial Volleyball fund. It will provide scholarships for island athletes.
Outrigger Bids Farewell to Tom “Daddy” Haine
If Duke Kahanamoku is Hawaii’s legendary kind of surfing, then Tom “Daddy” Haine is undoubtedly Hawaii’s king of the volleyball courts. On September 14, family and friends gathered at the Outrigger to “Celebrate the Life and Spirit of Tommy Haine” who was the Club’s secretary at the time of his death from a heart attack on September 10. Tom had serve the Club twice as president, in 1972 and 1987. He was on the Board of Directors for a total of 15 years beginning in 1968. He serves as Club vice-president three times (1970, 1971 and 1986, secretary in 1994, treasurer in 1969, 1984 and 1985 and Coordinating Director of Athletics (1968) and Long Range Planning (1973, 1988, 1989 and 1993). In addition, he served on the Canoe Surfing Committee in 1985 and on the Long Range Planning Committee in 1984 and 1990. Although his business skills helped keep the Club running smoothly, it was on the volleyball court that he may have made his greatest contribution as both a player and unofficial coach to many of the Club’s young volleyball players. Tom started playing volleyball at the old Club in 1950. He was state doubles champion 12 times, most recently in 1968, 1970 and 1971 with Paul MacLaughlin. He was also Club doubles champion many times, most recently with Jon Stanley in 1974. He captained the 1968 U.S Olympic Team which had the distinction of being the first U.S. international competition. He received a silver medal in 1963 and a gold medal in 1967 in the Pan American Games. Playing for the OCC, he was named an All-American 35 times, including both open and senior divisions. He was also named Golden Masters Player of the Year in 1982 and received the USVBA All-Time Great Player award in 1990. In 1991, he was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Massachuseus. Tom was one of the group of original Club athletes elected to the Outrigger’s Winged “O” in 1968. In addition to volleyball, he also paddled for Outrigger; in 1952 he was member of the winning state championship Junior Men’s crew. A memorial service was held at the Club on September 14. A flotilla for canoes, kayaks and surfboards helped scatter his ashes near Old Man’s, his favorite surfing spot while the Hawaii National Guard flew overhead, a rainbow appeared, iwa birds hovered over the canoes and turtles swam through the leis. Following the service, more than 100 friends gathered on the volleyball courts for a tournament in honor of “Daddy” as he was known to many. Donations in his name may be made to the Outrigger; Duke Kahanamoku Foundation, c/o the Outrigger Canoe Club. “We will always be thankful for the support and confidence Tommy gave to all of us, said OCC president Walter Guild. “We will miss Tommy deeply. His impact on the OCC has been too great for us to ever forget him”.
Volleyball Hall of Famer “Daddy” Haine dead at 61
The Outrigger Canoe Club’s court No.1 lost its greatest competitor Sept. 10 (1994). Thomas “Daddy” A Haine, 61, a member of the Volleyball Hall of Fame, captain of the 1968 U.S Olympic Volleyball Team and the consensus ambassador of volleyball in Hawaii for nearly four decades, died of a heart attack. Funeral services were held Sept. 14 at Haine’s beloved Outrigger; his ashes were scattered at sea. Family, friends and volleyball were the most important things in Haines’s life, said close friend and frequent teammate Dennis Berg. Haine was the godfather to Berg’s daughter. If someone had to be identified as a winner, it was “Daddy” Berg said. “He competed harder than anyone I know, but he never sacrificed sportsmanship for goodwill for winning. “ He loved his sports so much; he played in every possible volleyball competition and with many of the greatest players in the game”. In an interview several years ago, Haine said if volleyball, particularly beach volleyball, had been big 30 years ago, First Hawaiian Bank, where he worked for more than 35 years, would have been minus one executive. He saw the game grow from a non-existing prep sport at Roosevelt High School in Honolulu to a prestigious collegiate sport for men and women. Son Marc, an accomplished volleyball player himself, said his father “projected an aura of accomplishment”. “He pretty much had done it all, but was very humble about that, “Haine said. “Off the court, he helped people become better people just by his actions. He was always an example to me. I could see how his actions influenced others and how well loved he was for it. He never complained, or argued close calls. He just pulled himself and his teammates together for the next play”. A collegiate swimmer at San Jose State, Haine took on the nickname “Daddy” from his closest fan, wife Marilyn. “She’s his ‘A No.1 cheerleader and would constantly yell ‘Go Daddy, yeah Daddy, “Marc said, “it would go on forever during tournaments and people eventually picked up on it”. The elder Haine loved the spotlight, thrived on competition, but controlled his temper and even substituted words like “sugar” for four letter words”. “Mom taught him that,” Marc said, “Dad’s spirit lives very strong in me and a lot of others”. Tom Haine was vice president and bank manager of First Hawaiian Bank Kaimuki branch. He started with the company in 1958. The Kaimuki location allowed Haine lunchtime workout at the nearby Outrigger Canoe Club where he would either play a noon volleyball game or do 250-300 flights several times a week on a Stairmaster. Haine’s last volleyball game was a four-man Labor Day tournament at the Outrigger where his team took second place. The next day, following his Stairmaster workout, Haine was helping another person use the machine when he suffered a heart seizure. He went into a coma and never regained consciousness. “He went peacefully and painlessly”, son Marc said. Dave Shoji, the University of Hawaii’s women’s coach, called Haine a “legend” who every person who ever played in a United States Volleyball Association national knew. “He was nice to everybody, and played with anyone no matter their ability, Shoji said. Haine was instrumental in getting Shoji involved in Hawaii volleyball when Shoji returned in the early 1970s after attending college on the mainland. “He was responsible for me joining the Outrigger and getting to play for the Club, “Shoji said. “I will always be indebted to Daddy”. Haine also sponsored actor Tom Selleck for Outrigger membership in early 1980s and developed a close friendship on and off the volleyball court with the actor, who attended Haine’s funeral. Volleyball was not an option when Haine went to college in California. A generation later, his two children both attended college on volleyball scholarships; Marc at San Diego State and Kristin at Stanford. He was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 1991 and was elected to the All-American team of the USVBA Nationals 18 times. He won a silver medal in the 1963 Pan American Games and a gold medal in 1968 U.S. Olympic squad that beat the Russians for the first time. Haine was named Golden Masters Player of the Year in 1982 and received the USVBA All-Time Great Player award in 1990. He was also in the Air Force and Hawaii Air National Guard as a jet pilot, where he attained the rank of major. His passing is “a major loss for everyone and the sport of volleyball. Said Berg. “We have an empty feeling and an empty court where he ruled. That court be named after “Daddy Haine”. Tim Ryan
“Family” bids aloha to Daddy
Actor Tom Selleck joins 400 people of the Outrigger Canoe Club today to honor Tom “Daddy” Haine. Nearly 100 mourners paddled canoes and surfboards to spread Daddy’s ashes at his favorite spot. Old Man’s.