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Teammates’ text messages alert Tavana to Player of Week honors
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| Sky high: Futi Tavana, a 6-foot, 8-inch middle blocker with the Brigham Young University men’s volleyball team, goes up over the University of California at Irvine Anteaters block for a kill attempt in recent Mountain Pacific Sports Federation action. Tavana is from Kalaheo and Kaua‘i High School. Mark A. Philbrick, BYU/Contributed photo |
By Paul Curtis - The Garden Island
There is nothing ordinary about Futi Tavana.
The 6-foot, 8-inch freshman middle blocker, who has started every volleyball match this year for the sixth-ranked Brigham Young University Cougars, is a 21-year-old who during his two-year Mormon mission to Riverside, Calif., never once touched a volleyball, but still came back to the court and didn’t miss a beat.
When he was named Mountain Pacific Sports Federation/Molten Player of the Week and Sports Imports/AVCA Division I-II Men’s National Player of the Week, last month, he learned of the honors when his teammates and coaches texted him their congratulations.
He had to go to the school Web site to find out why everyone was congratulating him. “It was quite funny,” he said.
“I was really shocked to get the honor.”
And, while he is happy to have received the honors, he is much happier just to be getting some playing time with the top-ranked squad, he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
“Volleyball’s a team sport, so I can’t take all the credit,” he said.
Still, the statistics he racked up in two wins over Long Beach State give credence to his honors: 11 kills, 11 blocks and an ace in one match, and tying a school record 13 blocks while also recording 14 kills in the other match.
Tavana, son of Palagi and Dr. Gaugau Tavana of Kalaheo, is a sophomore in the classroom, and a freshman on the court, having redshirted (sat out a year in order to keep his four years of college volleyball eligibility) his first year at the school in Provo, Utah.
So, he has the rest of this year and three additional years of college volleyball eligibility, and three years plus the rest of this academic year to complete his degree in business management.
“I think redshirting was probably the best move for me at the time,” he said of his real first freshman year, when the team was so talented he would have had a hard time getting playing time.
Receiving a full scholarship (tuition and books) is a blessing, said Tavana, the 2005 Kaua‘i High School graduate who was player of the year in both volleyball and basketball during his Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation career.
Not bad for a young man who only started playing volleyball when he was 14 or 15, which coincides almost identically with the time his family moved to Kaua‘i.
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, and spending his early years in Saipipi, Western Samoa, Tavana made the Hawai‘i all-state volleyball team as a Raider senior, and played on some select age-group volleyball teams as well before he moved to Provo.
He considers Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Henry B. Eyring the most famous person he’s ever met, and it is Eyring who selects mission destinations for all of the LDS faithful young people, Tavana explained.
For his mission into the Spanish-speaking communities of Riverside, Calif., he learned (and became fluent in) Spanish by immersion, he recalled.
“You had to learn it or you couldn’t do any good,” he said.
It is LDS followers’ belief that Eyring or whomever the church president is is gifted with the ability to see where in the world LDS missionaries are needed most, and he decides where the missionaries will go, Tavana explained.
Back to volleyball, he said there is constant discussion about how deep the team could go in the NCAA men’s college volleyball tournament, which this year is in Provo Thursday through Saturday, May 7 to 9.
“Yeah, we talk about it every day, playing in May in BYU.”
The Cougars are currently 16-11 overall, and 12-8 in MPSF play. They destroyed then-No. 11 University of Hawai‘i Warriors in Provo, 3-1 and 3-0, in their only meeting earlier this year.
Tavana considered playing for UH, but opted to leave the state instead. “I kinda had the feeling that I had to leave the islands for awhile,” having spent his entire life on Pacific islands before enrolling at BYU.
The Cougars travel to Pepperdine for a key MPSF matchup this weekend, before the MPSF playoffs begin Saturday, April 25.
It is “surprising” to Tavana how well he is performing at BY U, and surprising that he’s getting the amount of playing time he is getting on such a talented team, he continued.
“There’s a lot of good players, and coach has confidence in everyone. We’re so deep,” he said.
The biggest difference, said Tavana, between the high school and college game, is “the speed of the game.
“The sets are higher and the game is slower” at the high-school level.
While he is happy to be at BYU, he misses Kaua‘i. “Kaua‘i is home right now. My parents are still here. I miss just hanging out on the beach with my friends, relaxing,” said Tavana, adding that he hopes to make it back here for a week or so this summer.
He also was asked to compare college versus high-school academics: “Kaua‘i High was a walk in the park,” academically, compared to BYU, he said.
Finally, he wanted to wish the Kaua‘i High School boys’ volleyball team good luck in the KIF second round.
Paul C. Curtis, sports writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 237) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com
The 6-foot, 8-inch freshman middle blocker, who has started every volleyball match this year for the sixth-ranked Brigham Young University Cougars, is a 21-year-old who during his two-year Mormon mission to Riverside, Calif., never once touched a volleyball, but still came back to the court and didn’t miss a beat.
When he was named Mountain Pacific Sports Federation/Molten Player of the Week and Sports Imports/AVCA Division I-II Men’s National Player of the Week, last month, he learned of the honors when his teammates and coaches texted him their congratulations.
He had to go to the school Web site to find out why everyone was congratulating him. “It was quite funny,” he said.
“I was really shocked to get the honor.”
And, while he is happy to have received the honors, he is much happier just to be getting some playing time with the top-ranked squad, he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
“Volleyball’s a team sport, so I can’t take all the credit,” he said.
Still, the statistics he racked up in two wins over Long Beach State give credence to his honors: 11 kills, 11 blocks and an ace in one match, and tying a school record 13 blocks while also recording 14 kills in the other match.
Tavana, son of Palagi and Dr. Gaugau Tavana of Kalaheo, is a sophomore in the classroom, and a freshman on the court, having redshirted (sat out a year in order to keep his four years of college volleyball eligibility) his first year at the school in Provo, Utah.
So, he has the rest of this year and three additional years of college volleyball eligibility, and three years plus the rest of this academic year to complete his degree in business management.
“I think redshirting was probably the best move for me at the time,” he said of his real first freshman year, when the team was so talented he would have had a hard time getting playing time.
Receiving a full scholarship (tuition and books) is a blessing, said Tavana, the 2005 Kaua‘i High School graduate who was player of the year in both volleyball and basketball during his Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation career.
Not bad for a young man who only started playing volleyball when he was 14 or 15, which coincides almost identically with the time his family moved to Kaua‘i.
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, and spending his early years in Saipipi, Western Samoa, Tavana made the Hawai‘i all-state volleyball team as a Raider senior, and played on some select age-group volleyball teams as well before he moved to Provo.
He considers Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Henry B. Eyring the most famous person he’s ever met, and it is Eyring who selects mission destinations for all of the LDS faithful young people, Tavana explained.
For his mission into the Spanish-speaking communities of Riverside, Calif., he learned (and became fluent in) Spanish by immersion, he recalled.
“You had to learn it or you couldn’t do any good,” he said.
It is LDS followers’ belief that Eyring or whomever the church president is is gifted with the ability to see where in the world LDS missionaries are needed most, and he decides where the missionaries will go, Tavana explained.
Back to volleyball, he said there is constant discussion about how deep the team could go in the NCAA men’s college volleyball tournament, which this year is in Provo Thursday through Saturday, May 7 to 9.
“Yeah, we talk about it every day, playing in May in BYU.”
The Cougars are currently 16-11 overall, and 12-8 in MPSF play. They destroyed then-No. 11 University of Hawai‘i Warriors in Provo, 3-1 and 3-0, in their only meeting earlier this year.
Tavana considered playing for UH, but opted to leave the state instead. “I kinda had the feeling that I had to leave the islands for awhile,” having spent his entire life on Pacific islands before enrolling at BYU.
The Cougars travel to Pepperdine for a key MPSF matchup this weekend, before the MPSF playoffs begin Saturday, April 25.
It is “surprising” to Tavana how well he is performing at BY U, and surprising that he’s getting the amount of playing time he is getting on such a talented team, he continued.
“There’s a lot of good players, and coach has confidence in everyone. We’re so deep,” he said.
The biggest difference, said Tavana, between the high school and college game, is “the speed of the game.
“The sets are higher and the game is slower” at the high-school level.
While he is happy to be at BYU, he misses Kaua‘i. “Kaua‘i is home right now. My parents are still here. I miss just hanging out on the beach with my friends, relaxing,” said Tavana, adding that he hopes to make it back here for a week or so this summer.
He also was asked to compare college versus high-school academics: “Kaua‘i High was a walk in the park,” academically, compared to BYU, he said.
Finally, he wanted to wish the Kaua‘i High School boys’ volleyball team good luck in the KIF second round.
Paul C. Curtis, sports writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 237) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com
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