HONOLULU – University of Hawai'i baseball head coach Rich Hill announced the first addition to his coaching staff with Kaiser High School graduate Dave Nakama coming home as an assistant coach.
 
"Coach Nakama brings a wealth of college baseball experience to the tradition-rich Rainbow Warrior program," Hill said. "Coach Nakama has a super human power of communicating with and developing players. He has developed MLB hitters such as Jed Lowrie and Jason Castro at Stanford and most recently National League All-Star Jake Lamb at Washington. We couldn't have hit a bigger home run with this hire! Let's Go 'Bows!"
 
Nakama has 33 years of collegiate coaching experience and has been a part of five College World Series teams (4 with Stanford and 1 with Washington). Most recently he was the Director of Operations at Washington during his second of two stints in Seattle. Sandwiched between his two stops at UW, Nakama was the head coach at San Jose State (2013-16) and Treasure Valley Community College (2017). He also spent 10 seasons with two separate stints as assistant coach at Stanford.
 
"I thank Coach Hill for the opportunity to return home and coach at UH," Nakama said. "It's always been a dream of mine to be part of the program that I grew up with."
 
The recruiting, hitting and defensive guru was also head coach at San Francisco State from 1999-2001 and Mission Junior College from 1992-96. In 2017, he served as the skipper at Treasure Valley Community College in Oregon. Including his four-year stint at San Jose State, Nakama has 13 years of experience as a head coach.
 
The Honolulu native is no stranger to the islands having coached for the Hawai'i Island Movers summer league baseball team, as head coach in 2000-01 and as associate head coach from 1994-96.
 
Nakama, who graduated from Kaiser High School in Honolulu, earned a bachelor's degree in physical education at Willamette in 1984 and a master's in physical education from Northern Colorado in 1986. He has three adult children; Samantha, Kirk and Brodie, the latter of whom was a four-year letterman and long snapper for the Rainbow Warrior football team.
 
Coaching Resume
2019-21, Washington, Director of Baseball Operations & Player Development
2018, Washington, Volunteer Assistant
2017, Treasure Valley (Ore.) C.C., Head Coach
2013-16, San Jose State, Head Coach
2010-12, Washington, Associate Head Coach
2002-09, Stanford, Assistant Coach
1999-2001, San Francisco State, Head Coach
1997-98, Stanford, Assistant Coach
1992-96, Mission Junior College, Head Coach 
1990-91, DeAnza (Calif.) College, Assistant Coach
1988-90, Yavapai (Ariz.) College, Assistant Coach
1986-88, Iowa, Assistant Coach
1984-86, Northern Colorado, Assistant Coach