Where Are They Now: Shellane Ogoshi, Volleyball

Recruited out of President Theodore Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, Shellane Ogoshi made her name as a one of the top setters in Hofstra volleyball history. Donning the blue and gold of Hofstra from 2004 to 2007, Ogoshi helped lead the Pride to a Colonial Athletic Association Tournament title and an NCAA Tournament appearance in the 2006 season, and was a big part of Hofstra winning its first-ever NCAA Tournament match against Cornell.

Playing as a setter and as a libero, Ogoshi was one of the most decorated student-athletes in the history of Hofstra volleyball. She was named the CAA Player of the Year and AVCA All-Region in 2005 after finishing that season with 1,130 assists and 99 kills in 102 sets and 27 matches for the Pride. She was also named CAA Setter of the Year in 2005 and 2006 and the CAA Rookie of the Year in 2004. Ogoshi was a three-time All-CAA First Team honoree and was named to the CAA Silver Anniversary Team for volleyball in 2009.

In 2006, Ogoshi received Tournament MVP honors in the CAA Championship as the Pride won its first CAA title to advance to the NCAA Tournament. In the first round match against Cornell, Ogoshi set a personal-best with 65 assists while recording five kills and 14 digs as the Pride won, 3-2 (30-22, 30-32, 30-27, 24-30, 15-11), for the first-ever NCAA Tournament victory in program history.

Ogoshi, who graduated from Hofstra in 2007 with a degree in international business and finance, ranks as the assists leader in Hofstra volleyball history with 4,597 assists and is second in digs with 1,660. An ace on the volleyball court, Ogoshi was also a star in the classroom as she was a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-District selection. Hofstra retired her number in 2008, and she was later enshrined in the Hofstra Athletics Hall of Fame in 2019.

Ogoshi served one season on the Hofstra coaching staff before she was named the head volleyball coach at C.W. Post in 2009. She would coach for seven seasons at Post from 2009 to 2015, and she would go on to be the all-time winningest coach in Pioneer history with a 142-92 record. During Ogoshi’s time with C.W. Post, the team would make five NCAA Division II Tournament appearances, and in 2013 the Pioneers captured the NCAA Division II East Region title.

After coaching for seven seasons at C.W. Post, Ogoshi moved back to Hawaii to work in the financial planning field. She is currently a financial advisor at Raymond James in Honolulu.

What made you decide to attend Hofstra?

Fate and luck. I was originally committed to go to Southampton College, and I had originally gone on a visit and I really liked being in New York and Long Island in general. But then two weeks prior to this large, national tournament where Coach [Fran] Kalafer saw me, I got a call from the Southampton coach telling me the school was going to be shut down and all students, after the first or second year, were going to have to go to C.W. Post. At that point, I didn’t know what C.W. Post was, so I spoke with my Southampton coach and he allowed me to decommit.

Sure enough, in the last day of the tournament, Coach Kalafer and her staff were there and she had to be dragged to my court by her associate head coach, Elaine Roque. Fortunately, Elaine managed to bring her to the court, she saw me play, and afterwards offered me a scholarship.

Since it was our last match, Coach Kalafer was able to talk to my head coach, who happened to be my father, and when we got the offer and saw that it was going to be a full ride we accepted instantly! So by the time we were done playing in the tournament, I had signed my National Letter of Intent, and then we went out for an official visit to the campus. I think we did pretty much everything backwards in terms of the normal recruiting process, and it was a whirlwind of events, but it was probably the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me.

What is your favorite memory from your time as a student-athlete at Hofstra?

There are two memories that come to mind, one as one of my favorite and another as my most memorable. Obviously, my favorite memory is when we went to the NCAA Tournament and we won our first round match before we had to face Penn State in the next round. Being able to experience that environment was phenomenal. 

My most memorable moment, not necessarily my favorite memory, was our first road trip my freshman year. I want to say we went to California, either San Francisco or Cal State-Fullerton, but we had gone on this trip. Myself and one of the other rookies – Amanda Beyersdorff – and I believe another person, I can’t remember who it was. At the end of the tournament, we forgot our water bottles at the gym. And fortunately one of our teammates, an upperclassman, picked them up and brought them back for us. But for our punishment for forgetting our water bottles, we were “volunteered” and voluntold to, from that moment on, from leaving the bus to going through the airport until we arrived at LaGuardia, we had to go everywhere carrying this banner while humming and singing ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and dancing along with it!

I’m not going to lie, every time I hear ‘Eye of the Tiger’ on the radio I have to turn it off immediately!

How did competing as a student-athlete at Hofstra prepare you for life after college?

It helped so much! Even the professors I had were amazing and we still talk to this day. Hofstra really set me up for success when I graduated and going into the next chapter of my life. They pushed me really hard on an academic level, and something I didn’t do much of prior to college was community service. So that was something that really engaged me into the community; I became really involved in the 1 in 9 the Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition because Fran was affected by breast cancer. 

From an athletics stand point, I took with me a lot of the things I learned at Hofstra to C.W. Post and I trained the players the way I learned. I still see my players who graduated from Post and they tell me all these things like ‘coach I just did Soul Cycle and I thought of you,’ and I know that my impact on them lives on.

Going from living in Hawaii to moving across the United States to Long Island, what was that transition like?

It was fantastic. People in Hawaii don’t get to travel to the East Coast very often, and there are stereotypes of these places. A lot of people told me the further East you go, the meaner the people get, so I was kind of bracing myself for that. When I got to Hofstra, though, they were the nicest people I’ve ever met in my entire life! Everyone was so open and they were so nice to me; being this young woman from Hawaii, they made me feel like I was at home even though I was 6,000 miles away. That in and of itself speaks volumes to the type of culture the University has, the type of program Coach Kalafer had instilled and built. I’m such a huge advocate for people to travel to the continental United States, especially the East Coast because of the experiences that I had.

There were so many things that I hadn’t experienced or was exposed to until I went to Hofstra. I hadn’t seen snow, obviously, but even the animals and the culture were different. We don’t have squirrels or raccoons or possums in Hawaii so that was definitely an experience. There were a couple times where we were walking back from practice or across campus, we came across a possum, and I didn’t know what to do! 

I felt like I already had a family when I got there, and it made it made everything much easier.

What was it like being a part of the first NCAA Tournament win in Hofstra volleyball history?

Looking back now, it was a very special memory for me, being a part of the first NCAA Tournament win. At the time, though, I didn’t realize we were going to make history if we won that match; I just looked at it like it was another match. I realized when we were doing our scouting reports ‘oh my gosh, we are so capable of beating this team.’ I made sure to I did everything possible to put us in a position to succeed, and I knew that everyone else on the team would do the same. 

And you can ask my teammates about this, but even after we won against Cornell and watching the Penn State match I said ‘Oh, we can take these guys too!’ Everyone thought I was nuts, but I was just really confident that we could do it and go far in the tournament.

One year after your graduation, you had your number retired. What was that like?

I don’t think I understood, or still understand, the significance of retiring a jersey. The first thing I said to myself when they said this was happening was ‘why would I want no one to have my number?’ I want my number to be worn and to have other players wear my number!

It felt great, though, to be recognized and honored for my time at Hofstra. I was able to meet Sue Gades, who had her jersey retired, and I had heard about her and researched her; I looked at what she was able to accomplish during her time and it was such an honor to meet and speak with her. The best part about that was getting to see Fran again. Being able to see Fran again after she retired and just to have her there meant the world to me. Just being able to connect and reconnect with the people that mattered the most to me was what I was most looking forward to.

How did it feel to be enshrined in the Hofstra Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019?

It was an incredible honor and an incredible experience. I think Hofstra did an amazing job putting the event together, it was top notch all around. To be able to reconnect and be a part of the program that I loved, and then have the honor of being inducted into the Hall of Fame where there are so many amazing athletes that are there, it was incredible to be a part of everything. A lot like when I had my jersey retired, being able to reconnect with all the people there who have a place for Hofstra in their heart was an incredible experience.

What made you want to get into coaching?

When I was in college, we had a club that ran out of the PFC and I was a coach there. Coach Kalafer also had us running coaching clinics and I got to learn from one of, I think, one of the best player and teachers that the program has ever had in Elizabeth Parisi (née Parr). Because we were both setters, and she was an amazing setter, we would always get paired up at clinics, and from everything about the way she played and taught, I wanted to be just like her! She was somebody that I really idolized.

And when I would come home for winter break, my dad had his club that I played for growing up. I figured as a way to give back was going to his practices and help coach that next group of volleyball players. Volleyball has always been a huge component in my life, and my family and I feel the best way to give back to the sport is through coaching. 

After a short time coaching at Hofstra, you became the head coach at C.W. Post and had a lot of success there. How did that come about and what was it like to be a collegiate head coach?

A year after I had been coaching at Hofstra, C.W. Post came to me and offered me the head coaching position. I had thought about it and it just seemed that the stars were aligning again. I could have ended up playing there had I kept my commitment to Southampton College, and it just felt like I was meant to be there in some form or another. 

Looking back on my time at Post, all that comes to mind is the impact I could make on those young women. The experiences that we got to go through were amazing; going to the NCAA Tournament and the Elite Eight was amazing. I thought the second round of the NCAA Tournament was great, and then I experienced going to the Elite Eight and it was such an amazing time.

I think getting to that point taught me more than anything that I had to evolve as a person, as a role model and as a coach. I realized that coming out of college and having Fran as a mentor, this was a job that you had to continue learning. One of the things Fran told us was that if you surround yourself with good people, good things will happen, so I set out to make that a cornerstone of our program. We looked to recruit good people and players with good support systems and were willing to fight hard for the program. 

I was able to bring in a bunch of kids from Hawaii to the East Coast for them to experience this. A lot of players that I looked to bring in may not have had the same opportunities were they with a different club or had different exposure. I’m maybe five-feet tall with shoes on, so I tried to look at players that had a lot of heart and a lot of passion for the game that may have gotten overlooked because they didn’t look like the traditional volleyball player.

What made you want to go into the financial field?

I just really loved doing financial planning and working with people to plan for their future. While I was at Hofstra, I did an internship with UBS, which used to be right in Uniondale. After I had finished my Master’s degree, I reached out to them and asked them if they were willing to be a reference for me, and someone that I had interned under said ‘I’ll do you one better, why don’t you come and work for me?’ So after I ended up working for him after I had finished my Master’s degree, and I realized how much of an impact I was able to make as a coach and how I could have an even greater impact on people’s lives by doing financial planning. 

I realized that a lot of the things I’m doing in my job today revolve around coaching; it’s getting to understand what motivates the person I’m working with, understanding where they are, where they want to be and what their goals are, and then developing a strategy of how we’re going to accomplish those goals. I now can help people with their retirement, wedding planning, buying a home and with all these other types of big life events. A lot of my clients have kids, who they want to see go to college, and I get to use what I learned from Hofstra and C.W. Post to help them accomplish that, and it’s been fantastic.

What does it mean to you to be a part of the Hofstra family?

It means everything to me. I’m actually getting teary eyed thinking about everything Hofstra and the people there mean to me. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have had the experience I did while at Hofstra and beyond. I stayed in New York almost 12 or 13 years after going out there for college because my experience at Hofstra was so amazing that I didn’t want to leave. I really fell in love with everything, from the people and the food to the Long Island culture. 

I still speak with other Hofstra alumnae; I still speak with Coach Kalafer and Cindy Lewis, Athletic Director Rick Cole Jr., who I had gotten to know through volleyball while he was at Dowling. They are family to me, and those relationships will never disappear. I will never lose contact with these people because they mean so much to me, and I have Hofstra to thank for that.

What is one piece of advice you would give to current Hofstra student-athletes?

Practice mindfulness. What I mean by that is that there are always opportunities for you to learn from, and it’s not necessarily only on the court, but it’s in every single encounter you have or in every minute of the day. You have to be mindful and open to those opportunities as they present themselves to you. So often we get caught up with ‘I need to do this and that’ and sometimes we don’t stop and realize that there are other things in life that we could be learning. It’s important to be mindful of the people you come into contact with and the things you have an opportunity to learn from.