Coach Dean’s legacy: An ILH baseball title
Senior Reyn Nagamine slams one in a game against Punahou. This year’s baseball team was led to great success by retiring coach Mr. Dean Yonamine. Photo by Bianca Bystrom.
June 7, 2009 • Iris Kuo
Filed under Sports
This year’s varsity baseball ILH title puts an exclamation point on the tenure of coach Dean Yonamine, who has announced he will step down after this season.
The last time ‘Iolani won the title was in 1997, the first year Mr. Yonamine was head coach of the varsity baseball team.
Mr. Yonamine, a sixth grade teacher, comes from a baseball family. His father, cousins, and uncles were baseball coaches or players. His main influence came from his uncle Wally Yonamine, who is in Japan’s professional Baseball Hall of Fame and whose foundation is the title sponsor for the state tournament.
Mr. Yonamine’s coaching career began in 1984 when he started coaching summer baseball at ‘Iolani while playing for UH. He decided to pursue the coaching route instead of continuing to play baseball.
Mr. Yonamine first became a coach at ‘Iolani while attending UH. When he finished his degree in economics and marketing in 1988, he realized that he wouldn’t have enough time to coach if he continued in that direction.
He said he told Mr. Eddie Hamada, “I want to come back to ‘Iolani to teach and coach.”
Mr. Hamada told him he would have to go back to college to earn his teaching degree, which Mr. Yonamine said was the best advice he’s ever gotten.
Mr. Yonamine had to plan his classes in the morning so that he’d be able to coach in the af- ternoon. When he received his degree in 1990, his first teaching job was at Radford High School, where he coached their junior varsity team.
Mr. Fred Okumura offered him the sixth grade social studies position in 1991, and Mr. Yonamine took over from Mr. Tate Brown, current Dean of Students.
After all his years of coaching, Mr. Yonamine has decided “it’s a good year to go out.” He says he’s gotten to know about six of the players pretty well after coaching them for three or four years. Now that they’re all graduating, it’s time to move on. He’s not leaving ‘Iolani, though; Mr. Yonamine will still be a sixth grade Social Studies teacher here, but instead of coaching, he’s looking forward to traveling to see some of the seniors play in college. Mr. Jason Arakaki (‘87) will be taking his place, and Mr. Yonamine is glad that he’s leaving his team in such good hands.
“I always tell the players, ‘if baseball were that easy, everyone would make $250,000 like the pros,” Mr. Yonamine said.
“Baseball is 75 percent hard work, dedication, and mental toughness. You don’t necessarily have to be the greatest athlete.”
He admires who the upperclassmen have become as people and looks forward to visiting them in college to watch them play.
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