{"id":1907,"date":"2015-10-25T21:21:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T05:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1907"},"modified":"2015-10-25T21:21:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T05:21:31","slug":"western-a-hotspot-for-hawaiian-student-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/western-a-hotspot-for-hawaiian-student-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Western a hotspot for Hawaiian student-athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Jamal Smith \r\nStaff Writer<\/pre>\n
It has been well documented within the past decade that Oregon\u2019s major universities have been a draw for Hawaiian athletes.  <\/p>\n
Although Western is a much smaller college than the University of Oregon or Oregon State, the Wolves still play host to a growing number of Hawaiian student-athletes.<\/p>\n
On all three rosters of the football team, soccer team, and volleyball team, the Wolves have a total of 22 Hawaiian athletes; 13 on the football team, six on the soccer team, and three on the volleyball team).<\/p>\n
These numbers may not seem all that staggering, but when comparing the number of Western\u2019s Hawaiian athletes to the rosters of the other ten schools in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC), it becomes clear that Western is a stand out in attracting Hawaiian players.<\/p>\n
The rosters of football, soccer, and volleyball from all of the other 10 schools in the GNAC conference only have a grand total of 15 Hawaiian students  (11 for football, three for soccer, and one for volleyball).  <\/p>\n
Yes, you read correctly. Western Oregon has seven more Hawaiian athletes in football, soccer, and volleyball than the 10 other teams in the GNAC conference combined.<\/p>\n
Generally, Division-II  schools across the country recruit athletes within their state lines or bordering states.  <\/p>\n
Central Washington\u2019s women\u2019s soccer team, for example, has a 28 person roster, all of which are from the state of Washington.<\/p>\n
So what makes Western Oregon such a hot destination for Hawaiian athletes?<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the people; they\u2019re all friendly,\u201d stated first year midfield soccer player Taylor Cadiz from Mililani, Hawaii.  \u201cI also like that it\u2019s a small school.  The classes are really small and it\u2019s easier to go to the professors and get help compared to a bigger university.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior midfield\/forward soccer player Machaela Rapozo from Lihue, Hawaii said, \u201cI chose Western Oregon because it\u2019s under the WUE (Western Undergraduate Exchange Program) and we get in-state tuition here.  Also, Oregon is pretty close to Hawaii because it\u2019s on the west coast so we don\u2019t have to travel that far to go back home.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of [Hawaiians] here so you can get away from home but at the same time there\u2019s still the comfort of having other [Hawaiians] here,\u201d Rapozo added.<\/p>\n
Whatever the reason may be for a Hawaiian athlete or student to choose Western Oregon over other universities, the Wolfpack is certainly happy to have them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has been well documented within the past decade that Oregon\u2019s major universities have been a draw for Hawaiian athletes.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}