In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Title IX, University of Hawai'i Athletics will pay tribute to memorable Rainbow Wahine student-athletes and teams in a series of stories written by Lance Tominaga. The stories will run throughout the 2022-23 athletic season and can be found on the page #Wahine50: Celebrating 50 Years of Rainbow Wahine Athletics.

It's hard to believe now, but once upon a time Deitre Collins-Parker was not a very good volleyball player.

"Oh, I was terrible!" she recalls, laughing.

It's amazing what a little experience – and tons of hard work – can do. By the time Collins-Parker completed her volleyball career at the University of Hawai'i, she was a three-time All-American, the holder of numerous program records, and even the winner of the Broderick Cup – an award bestowed to the country's top female collegiate athlete.

Collins-Parker was also a centerpiece on the Rainbow Wahine's back-to-back national championship teams in 1982 and 1983.

Not bad for someone who, as a freshman at Antelope Valley High School, was the last person selected for the Antelopes' volleyball team.

Collins-Parker was born on March 3, 1962 in Los Angeles. Growing up, she participated in a number of sports, including basketball, softball, track and field and…bowling?

"Bowling was actually the first sport I ever played because my parents bowled," Collins-Parker says. "That was the first tournament I was in. My family, we were always doing something. I just loved sports."

Her involvement with volleyball started during her first year at Antelope Valley, a school located in Lancaster, Calif. (The school's alumni includes actress/singer Judy Garland and rock music legend Frank Zappa.) It happened on a whim.

"I probably thought I would run track or play basketball long before volleyball came into the picture," Collins-Parker says. "I was actually planning to play tennis in the fall, but all my basketball-playing friends were playing volleyball. So I tried out and made the freshmen team. I didn't know much about volleyball. I had never played it. I never even watched it."

What Collins-Parker lacked in experience, she made up for in sheer athleticism. It was her raw ability that earned her a spot on an Olympic Development team in L.A. led by noted volleyball trainer and coach Toshi Yoshida. (Originally from Japan, Yoshida moved to the United States and would serve on the U.S. Women's National Team. With current Rainbow Wahine head coach Robyn Ah Mow as his setter, he coached the U.S. squad to a silver medal in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.)

"This was the spring after my sophomore season," explains Collins-Parker. "They picked the team by athleticism, and they brought in Toshi Yoshida to train us. It was kind of like an experiment."

Under Yoshida's tutelage, Collins-Parker trained six hours a day, six days a week. Then, on Sundays, she practiced hitting for another two hours.

"Needless to say, I learned a lot," she recalls. "And over the next two years, I put in a lot of time to improve my game."

Collins-Parker's first taste of Hawai'i came during her senior year, when her club team took part in a tournament in Hilo.

"I met [future Rainbow Wahine All-American] Tita Ahuna's mom when I was there," she says. "Everyone was so nice to me, even though they didn't know me from Adam."

Later, she watched the Rainbow Wahine win the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national championship at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. Although she was being recruited by the likes of USC, UCLA and Stanford, Collins-Parker set her sights on Hawai'i.

UH head coach Dave Shoji, however, wasn't so sure.

"He didn't know anything about me," Collins-Parker recalls. "I sent in a tape. He showed it to the basketball coaches to get their opinion. They saw that I was athletic. But Dave was also recruiting some other players. One of them was Paula Weishoff, and we played the same position. Dave said, 'Well, if Paula doesn't come, maybe I'll take you.' Then he said, 'Maybe I can take you both.' Paula ended up going to USC. So I guess I got lucky that Paula didn't come here."

Before enrolling at UH, Collins-Parker was named the MVP of a 17-and-under junior national tournament. Even then, she had to endure the doubters.

"People were mad at me when I decided to come to Hawai'i," she told Ann Miller in a November 1980 Honolulu Advertiser article. They said the best volleyball was in California. They said if I came here I would never make the national team. They, like, disowned me. They even wrote a lot of bad things about me in Volleyball Magazine, saying that I didn't deserve that [MVP] award. That hurt me a lot. But it's okay. Someday I'll prove them wrong."

Did she ever.
 

Although Shoji and the Rainbow Wahine were coming off their first national championship, the team returned only one starter – All-American middle blocker Diane Sebastian. Collins-Parker was part of a talented freshman class that also included Sista Palakiko-Beazley, Missy Yomes, Marcie Wurts and the Pulaski twins, Kori and Kris.

Collins-Parker admits she was probably the "least polished" player in that group. Still, by the end of her freshman campaign, the six-foot middle blocker was entrenched as a starter and displaying her potential as an offensive force. The Wahine finished the season 34-10 and advanced to the AIAW semifinals before falling to USC.

Before the start of her sophomore season, the Rainbow Wahine played a series of exhibition matches in Japan. That experience, she says, helped her become a better blocker.

"The [Japanese] players were so fast," she marvels. "By the time we returned home, the college game seemed slow to me. That trip helped me to better understand the speed of the game and catch up volleyball IQ-wise compared to the other girls that came in."

Collins-Parker blossomed as a sophomore, earning All-American honors and leading UH with 433 kills and 40 solo blocks. Hawai'i won its first 30 matches of the season before stumbling against Utah State. The Rainbow Wahine advanced to the NCAA Regional Finals in Seattle, where they fell to the defending national champion Trojans.
 

"I remember how devastated [senior] Diane Sebastian was," says Collins-Parker. "I felt so sad because she was so good and someone I looked up to."

The Rainbow Wahine were even better in 1982, Collins-Parker's junior season. The team went 32-1 and reached the NCAA Tournament championship match against – who else? – the USC Trojans.

"We were nervous going into the Regional Final [against Cal Poly] because it was in San Luis Obispo, where we lost the year before. We felt such a relief to get past that moment. Then, of course, to play USC in the title game…"

On Dec. 19, in Stockton, Calif., the Rainbow Wahine dropped the first two sets to the Trojans, then roared back to claim their second national championship. The final tally was 14-16, 9-15, 15-13, 15-10 and 15-12.

"That season was so monumental," recalls Collins-Parker, who led UH with 25 kills, seven blocks, and three service aces in the title game and was named Most Valuable Player for the final four. "I get worked up just thinking about it!"

The 1983 team took a workmanlike approach on their way to a 34-2 record and another national title. This time around, Hawai'i dispatched UCLA in straight sets—15-13, 15-4 and 15-10—to successfully defend their championship. Collins-Parker again led the way with 16 kills and eight blocks. The Rainbow Wahine dropped only one set in the entire NCAA Tournament.

"Our senior year, we were kind of in cruise control," says Collins-Parker. "We knew what we needed to do and how to do it."

Collins-Parker was named an All-American for the third time. And an even bigger honor was still to come.

On Jan. 10, 1984, at the annual NCAA Convention in Dallas, Collins-Parker was named the winner of the Broderick Cup, which recognizes the nation's best female college athlete. She beat out several other prominent figures for the award, including future Olympic gold medalists Tracy Caulkins (swimming), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (track and field) and Anne Donovan (basketball).

"That was surreal," says Collins-Parker, recalling the experience. "I really thought I didn't have a chance. It was one of those moments where you're just happy to be there, and I didn't even prepare a speech. Then all of a sudden the speaker started talking about Lancaster. I thought, 'Holy crap! I think they're talking about me!'"
 

Although her college eligibility for volleyball had expired, Collins-Parker wasn't done being a Rainbow Wahine just yet: She suited up for the UH basketball team for the 1984-85 season, starting 17 games and averaging 4.9 points and six rebounds per contest.

A surgery to her hitting hand led Collins-Parker to pass up on the opportunity to play for the U.S. Olympic team in 1984. But she was part of the 1988 squad that competed in Seoul. She also served as an alternate for the 1992 team that also featured former UH great Teee Williams.
 

After retiring as a player in December of 1992, Collins-Parker turned to coaching, saying, "I tried a real office job for two weeks, and it was just boring!"

She joined Bill Walton's staff at the University of Houston in 1993, then made stops at Northern Arizona and South Alabama before landing the head coaching job at UNLV in 1996. Collins-Parker spent eight seasons with the Rebels. In 1998, she led the team to a 23-8 record and a berth in the WAC Tournament semifinals. In 2004, she took the coaching reins at Cornell and led the program to three Ivy League championships and two NCAA Tournament appearances. She then coached at San Diego State, earning Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year honors in 2012. In 2021, she joined the Coastal Carolina program as an assistant head coach.

Today, Collins-Parker is the director of volleyball at Sports Legacy USA, a Mesa, Arizona-based sports park. She oversees the club teams, tournaments, leagues and camps organized by the park.

Collins-Parker was inducted into the UH Sports Circle of Honor in 1989. In 2008, she was inducted into the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Hall of Fame.
 

Needless to say, Collins-Parker proved all of her doubters wrong.

Asked whether she has any regrets in her time at UH, Collins-Parker admits she should have worked harder in the classroom.

"My only regret in life is that I didn't do better at school when I had the opportunity," she says. "I figured it out later. That's how I approached it as a coach. It's kind of like being a parent, right? You don't want your kids to make the same mistakes that you made. Don't be like me. I came back [to UH] ten years later to finish my degree."

Collins-Parker received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Broadcast Communications in 1995.

Nearly 40 years after her second national title, Collins-Parker says she has nothing but fond memories of Rainbow Wahine volleyball and Hawai'i.

"It's just a very special and unique place," she says. "I love the hashtag they use now, 'Sistahhood.' I'm still really close to Sista Palakiko-Beazley and LeeAnn (Pestana) Satele. I just returned from a girls trip to France with [former Rainbow Wahine] Teee Williams and Diana Jessie.

"We are all sisters. When you accomplish something as special as we did, they'll always have a place in my heart."

Last year marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark legislation that sought to provide girls and women equal opportunities in both sports and academics. Its impact and relevance are not lost on Collins-Parker.

"I'm so grateful that I could go to college and play a sport because my mom couldn't do that," she says. "Kids today don't want to hear about how things used to be. But they need to hear it. They need to understand that we've come a long way, but there's still a long ways to go."

"I think Title IX is one of the most important bills to come along. It gives women the opportunity to go be extraordinary. And that's what we're seeing every day. Because of Title IX, there are some really extraordinary women doing extraordinary things."