College Basketball Scores With Dottie Nahale
Offical collegiate basketball scorekeeper Dottie Nahale and Snow | Nathalie Walker photo
This sports story is about someone who doesn’t play sports at all and never has. But it’s a great example of the commitment that the unsung heroes who support our sports make each and every day. And most of the time, you don’t even know they are there.
Dorothy “Dottie” Nahale is an official scorekeeper for collegiate basketball. That job is one of the most important at any athletic event, but you rarely even give them a thought. The work is exacting and sometimes stressful, especially with the pace of the game. Not just anyone could do it.
Nahale has been keeping the official scorebook at Chaminade and other PacWest games for nearly two decades, as assigned by another hard worker, JoAnn Yokogawa. “Dottie does an excellent job on the scorebook; she’s unassuming, not flashy, and does a great job night in and night out,” says Chaminade athletic director Bill Villa. She drives in from her home in Ewa Beach or work in Waikele and “goes about her business in a professional manner and then disappears quietly after the game.”
That part of the story is nice and appreciated, but it’s what Nahale does in addition to her scorekeeping duties that makes her commitment all the more remarkable. You see, Nahale’s full-time job is operations manager at the Kmart store in Waikele. “I’ve been at it for the last 15 years, six days a week,” she says.
As manager of one of the top-producing Kmarts in the state, Nahale often works 12-hour days that start at 3 a.m. Yes, 3 a.m.
“Think of it,” Villa says. “Her workday begins at 3 a.m. and usually ends around 3 p.m., and then she makes the drive to McCabe Gym or the Blaisdell or wherever the games are played, she does her score-keeping job, then goes home after the 7:30 p.m. game has concluded and gets a few hours of sleep before getting up at 2 a.m. to report for work.”
“Sometimes it gets a little bit hard, but I love basketball, the students, the game; I like doing it. If I get a couple of hours’ sleep, I’m OK,” Nahale says. Somehow, she even has time to run a small business on the side.
Nahale, who used to work for Nani Cockett’s D-ONE basketball, got into score-keeping Chaminade games because one of her daughters attended there. All three of her children were active in sports or hula – daughters HoneyLei and DeeAnn and son Kekoa.
“The kids are all grown, and I’m an old lady now,” she says kiddingly, “but I like to keep going. My kids tell me they wonder where I get all my energy. They say, ‘We could never do what you do.'”
“When I discovered that she works our games after putting in a 12-hour workday as manager of the Kmart in Waikele, I wanted to know what vitamin pills she was taking.” Villa says. “There can be a lot of stress with scorekeeping an NCAA basketball game. It’s fast-paced, you have to keep track of points scored, fouls made, who made them, how many team fouls, timeouts and so forth – just a lot of attention to detail. It amazes me that after a day of managing a multimillion-dollar operation, instead of de-servingly putting her feet up and lounging on a chair relaxing, Dottie opts to do scorekeeping tasks. I think she’s amazing to be able to handle these tasks in addition to the other responsibilities she has in life!”
To Dottie Nahale and all the other hard-working unsung heroes who support our island sports, thank you so much!
