By MATT GERHART
By MATT GERHART
Tribune-Herald sports writer
Ciera Min started golfing at age 7 so she could spend more time with her dad. That and she liked playing with his club covers and acting like they were puppets. But it didn’t take long before she joined the Big Island Junior Golf Association and the sport became her one and only hobby.
College coaches took notice as she climbed the junior ranks, and during the early hours of Sept. 1, like clockwork, the Waiakea High junior started receiving recruiting emails from schools all over the mainland.
After months of “stress,” her decision came at 3 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day last month. Always a bulldog on the golf course, Min gave her verbal commitment to accept a full scholarship to compete for the Division I Gonzaga Bulldogs.
Now, Min figures it’s time to live a little.
“I golf, that’s all I do, but it’s all paid off, all the times I had to tell my friends, ‘Oh, I’m sorry I can’t go here or I can’t go there,”’ Min said.
“I have a bucket list. I’m going to the volcanoes, I’m going to the beaches. I’m going to learn how to surf before I go.”
She chose the school in Spokane, Wash. — sight unseen — over similar offers from Washington State and the University of Oregon in part because of the strong bond she felt with coach Brad Rickel. It’s a similar relationship she shares with swing coach Kevin Hayashi and previous mentor Kyle Shimokusu.
“(Coach Brad) was very one-on-one with me. It was different,” Min said. “All the coaches were great, but I felt a deeper connection with coach Brad. I don’t know if it’s because my coach has always been coach Kevin and he’s a guy. The program is really growing. They’re always in the top 100, but it’s really grown. I liked the program enough that I could commit before even seeing the campus.”
As an added bonus, Rickel’s wife is a professor in sports management, Min’s major-to-be. One day, Min would like to be — no surprise — a golf coach. She already knows one of her future Bulldogs teammates, having teamed up with freshman Alice Kim of Honolulu to win the Mary Cave Cup in 2010 outside San Diego.
“(Alice) has told she me everything is good at Gonzaga, and Alice is a real honest person,” Min said. “I’ve heard a lot about Spokane and that it’s really cold. I wanted to experience something different. I’ve lived my whole life in Hawaii. I want to experience the four seasons, even though I know I’m going to freeze. Gonzaga is right outside the city, so it’s kind of like Hilo in that it’s smaller, yet you can walk right into the city and where there’s more things to do.”
Min, 16, won’t sign her letter of intent until November, and NCAA rules prohibit coaches from commenting on recruits until then.
She called her college recruitment “overwhelming,” and worried that choosing Gonzaga, a private Roman Catholic school with approximately 5,000 undergraduate students, over larger Pacific 12 schools would hinder her chances at turning pro.
As usual, she heeded Hayashi’s advice: Like golf, college is what you make of it.
“She’ll have the opportunity to play right away, get a good education, that comes first, and if she still has aspirations to be a pro, she can follow that dream.” Hayashi said.
The Hawaii Golf Hall of Famer is also the swing coach for Waiakea senior Nani Yanagi, who has signed to play at Washintgon State.
“It’s really a reflection of them and their heart and determination and drive,” Hayashi said. “A lot of kids have talent, but they’re two of the hardest workers I know.”
As much as Min feels blessed to have the support of her coaches and numerous golf organizations, she says family comes first on her appreciation list. Her parents, Marvin and Toni Min of Hilo, and grandparents, Edwin and Janice Kaneshiro of Hilo, have had to foot much of the bill so she could travel to compete in tournaments on the mainland.
“Ever since I started golf, everyone has had to make sacrifices for me, and my dad’s made some huge sacrifices for me,” Ciera Min said. “He put golf aside, so he hardly ever golfs anymore. I definitely couldn’t have done any of this without my grandparents. They supported me through all my travels.
“When my parents have to travel with me, it’s away from my brother (10-year-old Cody) and he always gets left back. So he’s made sacrifices for me.”
For all the wins that Min has collected in junior and Big Island Interscholastic Federation meets, it’s a loss that she remembers as her proudest golfing accomplishment.
Last June, she and her family had to scramble so she could get to Oregon after learning she’d secured a late berth at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship as a second alternate. She qualified after two rounds of stroke play before losing in match play to one of her idols, UCLA’s Tiffany Lua.
“The conditions were horrible,” Min said. “I was was suffering from the cold weather, but when I got to the 18th hole with Tiffany, I felt very content even though I didn’t win.”
Min accomplished one goal by selecting a college by spring break of her junior year, but she’s still got plenty left before she leaves Waiakea.
Min carded a 1-over 73 on Monday to capture medalist honors at her third consecutive BIIF tournament. Min will be favored to win her first BIIF title — she didn’t compete in all full rounds last year because she was at a mainland event — when the league tournament starts April 22 at Hualalai.
Then it’s on to the Hawaii High School Athletic Association tournament on Kauai, and event in which the Warriors finished runner-up last season.
“Our team goal is to win states, and individually I want to win states,” Min said. “I want to show everyone how much they’ve done to help me. Then my goal is not to get senioritis, I want to use my scholarship as motivation.”