After 30 years as head coach of the Penn State women's volleyball team, Russ Rose realizes more than most that "stuff happens" during a season. Players get hurt, personalities clash, people don't play to their potential.

Maybe once or twice — four times if you are really fortunate in Hawai'i and six if you stick around long enough at UCLA — the stars align and you win an NCAA championship.

It is a realization that hits when you are a member of the "old school" of college coaching. Rose, Hawai'i coach Dave Shoji and UCLA coach Andy Banachowski all belong, and not just because they are old.

They are the only three coaches in their game with more than 900 victories. Their coaching box scores add up to 2,938 wins in exactly 100 years of taking teams in and out of the Top 10 and claiming a dozen national titles.

All three are here this week for the 21st annual Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic. It opens the 2008 season tomorrow at Stan Sheriff Center, with the sixth-ranked Bruins taking on Ohio and 12th-ranked Rainbow Wahine facing the top-ranked Nittany Lions.

Penn State wears this year's volleyball bullseye. The Nittany Lions have all seven starters back from a team that turned it on last season to win its last 26, and Rose's second NCAA championship. They are the prohibitive favorites to repeat this year, but Rose all but prohibits them from thinking about it.

"That's the reason teams don't repeat," he said. "I think a lot of times you spend more energy celebrating what you accomplished instead of trying to achieve something special for the future. There are a lot of factors involved. I'm certainly aware of the fact we won the championship last year. It was exciting. The kids played great, they got better throughout the season and by the end they were playing with confidence and people were healthy. That made a big difference.

"My point to my players is, we are not going to win because we won. You win because you work hard and play together. Those things really contribute to what you are going to accomplish. If you spend all your time worrying about what you did do, then the chances of doing something are pretty slim."

So, despite dominant hitting and blocking numbers back, Rose agonizes over nagging "physical and mental health" problems, adjusting to the NCAA's new scoring system (playing to 25 instead of 30 the first four games) and the missing 20 years of experience from the non-starting seniors he did lose.

No one feels sorry for him, including his oldest volleyball friends here.

PSU hit .350 as a team last year, the second straight season it led the country in attack percentage. It was an astounding number that only one player on the Hawai'i, UCLA and Ohio rosters managed. That was Mid-American Conference Player of the Year Melissa Griffin and her eligibility at Ohio is done.

The Nittany Lions have three first-team All-Americans back (Nicole Fawcett, Megan Hodge and Christa Harmotto) and a second-team All-American (Alisha Glass) setting them. And they are as obstinate defensively as they are efficient offensively. Behind Big Ten Freshman of the Year Arielle Wilson and Harmotto, PSU stuffed nearly four balls a game last season, which was second nationally.

Rose knows all that is not worth any points, particularly after Nebraska failed to repeat last season with five returning All-Americans.

In the 27-year history of NCAA women's volleyball, five teams have defended titles. That elite group includes Rose's "back in the day" buddies — Shoji at Hawai'i (1982 and '83) and Banachowski's UCLA (1990 and '91).

"It's tough because our program is reaching the same status as Dave's in that if you don't win all the time everybody is unhappy," Rose said. "They don't take into account that there are so many other good teams now. Maybe they are not all Top-50 teams, but they are good teams and rally-scoring is a different game. Any team can win on any given day. If we played best-of-seven matches, the best team would win. One match, I don't think the best team always wins.

"Dave and I realize sometimes you win when you don't think you are going to, and sometimes you are surprised you lost. It's just part of the game."