The Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex (DKAC) serves as the home for the University of Hawai‘i’s swimming and diving and women’s water polo teams. The facility, located on the University’s lower campus, includes a 50-meter training pool and a separate 25-yard competition and diving pool.
The DKAC also features recently renovated locker rooms and showers for both the men's and women's swimming & diving teams and women's water polo squad. The improvements, which also included a new conference room/player lounge, were completed in the summer of 2011. In 2015, shade structures were added to the diving well area.
The competition pool doubles as the diving facility, which has two one-meter and three-meter springboards. The diving/competition pool features three platform towers at heights of five, seven-and-a-half, and 10-meters. It also houses a hot tub and an underwater viewing room where the swimmers are videotaped, enabling the coaching staff to analyze each swimmer’s stroke mechanics. This is one of the fastest pools in the USA at a depth of 17 feet.
In addition to the swimming and diving programs, the complex has hosted international swimming meets, the U.S. Olympic Committee Swimming Camp, two Western Athletic Conference Championships, and the U.S. Swimming and Diving Training Camps. The diving pool played host to the Pan American Clipper Cup Diving Meet held in the fall of 1987. Prior to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, the complex served as a training site for the Olympic teams from the United States, Ireland, Sri Lanka, and Canada.
The pool stands as a namesake to Hawai‘i’s most legendary swimmer and surfer, Duke Kahanamoku. “The Duke” was the first famous Waikiki beach boy. His passion for water sports included surfing, swimming and canoeing, taking him to the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. Kahanamoku shocked the world when he broke the 100-yard freestyle event and received his gold medal by an impressed Swede King Gustaf.
