James Toshio Yagi, the “Father of Small College Basketball in Hawai’i,” passed away yesterday at the age of 88. He leaves behind wife Jeanne and sons Brady and Kirby.
Yagi fashioned a 252-126 career overall record and coached the very first Vulcan team to compete at the NAIA level in 1976-77. He took the Vulcans to the NAIA national tournament three times, and put UH Hilo basketball on the map.
That first season, the Vulcans shocked the basketball world by upsetting Division-I Nebraska and New Mexico, and they would go on to capture the NAIA District 2 title and play in the national tournament in Kansas City.
He roamed the sidelines for 12 seasons at UH Hilo and had 11 winning campaigns.
Yagi remains the winningest men’s basketball head coach (against college teams) in UH-Hilo history with a 218-87 record (his first three seasons were prior to NAIA membership). He began his coaching career as an assistant to Ramon Goya, who would later become the athletic director when Yagi took over as head coach. Yagi and Goya were instrumental in helping develop the UH Hilo athletics program and guiding its success in the NAIA as well as establishing the popular Vulcans Hawai’i Basketball School.
For six decades, he led camps across the islands, even as recently as the past few years, in what is now called the Jimmy Yagi Basketball Camp. He also taught in youth basketball camps in Europe, alongside Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki.
The Yagi family established the Coach Jimmy Yagi Scholarship at UH Hilo. Coach in addition to the James S. and Kameko Yagi/Sadao and Bessie Y. Nishida Scholarship in honor of their parents, to benefit Big Island high school graduates attending UH Hilo.
Jimmy Yagi is a 1957 alumnus of the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. A scholar-athlete himself, Yagi played basketball for UH Manoa and benefited from a scholarship which covered his tuition.
Coach was inducted into the inaugural UH Hilo Athletics Hall of Fame and is also a member of the Big Island Sports Hall of Fame.
Memorial services will be announced at a later time.
Photo credit: UH Hilo