Sports Update
Is this the last season
for Rainbow football?The UH football coach says that
By Paul Arnett
without drastic changes, sports at
Hawaii are doomed
Star-BulletinThe visionaries at the University of Hawaii athletic department have had trouble focusing in recent years on the big E at the top of the eye chart.
Their inability to generate fresh ideas and inventive ways to combat an ailing economy and a failing football program have brought this Division I department to the brink of extinction.
Had the defection in the Western Athletic Conference occurred six years ago, there's little doubt Hawaii would not only have known about it, but have been included in the plans to begin a new league.
Now, as the 20th century draws to a close, the future of the Rainbows is about as bright as a man living on death row. The eight WAC defectors aren't sure they want them. And the remaining schools in the league won't want them for long, leaving Hawaii in a state of limbo.
None of the recent events surprised UH head coach Fred vonAppen, who has been blowing his horn loud and long that if something isn't done soon, Hawaii fans could bid a fond farewell to local collegiate sports as they know it.
''We need to marshal our forces departmentally, and be proactive and visionary, which may be newly charted waters for us,'' vonAppen said in a recent interview with the Star-Bulletin. ''In the past, the focus here has been on gate receipts and state funding to take care of things.
''Well, state funding is going bye-bye. You always fight to keep up gate receipts. But we're going to have to be active, mobile and effective in corporate and individual fund-raising.
''We in the department are going to have to get very creative. We're going through a very slow strangulation process, that if not corrected, is going to leave us out here with nobody to play. The statement we need to make to our fans is come and make a difference.''
At this point, not many fans are listening. Season-ticket sales in football have dropped nearly 40 percent since 1991. Part of the reason is an ailing economy. Five consecutive years without a winning season also has contributed to the steady decline in football.
Granted, the Rainbows have been consistently strong in the traditional nonrevenue sports, but those don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Without football, the other sports would be train cars in search of a locomotive.
''If football doesn't survive here, Hawaii won't be an attractive commodity for any major conference,'' vonAppen said. ''People here don't seem to get that fact. Football, and to some extent, basketball, make everything else go.
''We need people to come out and fill the stadium to not only help our guys psychologically, but even more importantly than that, to make a difference in the image your program has to people on the mainland.
''We need to be an attractive commodity, so we can join forces in a conference context. We're in one now, but as we found out, they can be very delicate operations that come apart very quickly.
''Yeah, you can litigate it out and that's fine. You may find out you're right, and win a lawsuit, but it doesn't change the results. The reason the eight schools bolted is business. This is a business. And if we don't start thinking in those terms, football could disappear from the local landscape in as soon as five years.''
Former UH head football coach Bob Wagner sounded a similar call several seasons ago, and wound up being fired. He told UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida that the facilities were lagging, that the grade requirements were keeping talented local and mainland players away, and that the department needed to court major donors.
VonAppen agrees with every point.
''We have to keep up with our competitors, not only on the field of play, but in all other aspects,'' vonAppen said. ''If we're not able to do that, then we're like the dinosaurs. We have to adapt or die. We need to let our fans know the gravity of this situation. It isn't intended to intimidate or threaten, it's just the way it is.''
The third-year head coach also believes trying to intimidate the teams that left the WAC by not putting them on the UH schedule is a mistake.
''We can't afford to alienate anybody,'' vonAppen said. ''We also have to be aware of the dynamics of college football. The landscape is going to change over the next few years and we have to be ready to adapt to it. We have to be a program that conferences and television markets view as viable, or things could get ugly in a hurry. This coming season, I believe we have a team that could sucker punch somebody, but we still have a very trying schedule.''
It's unlikely the UH football team is going to turn a corner and challenge for the Pacific Division crown in 1998. Throw in nonconference games against tough opponents Michigan, Arizona and Northwestern, and a winning season also appears beyond reach.
As vonAppen put it, ''We're going to have to overachieve to be competitive. Sometimes when you tell fans that, it turns them off. But it had better turn them on because we need to promote overachievement.
''If we don't overachieve, then we'll be in deep trouble. I think we'll be improved, but I'm not in a position to prognosticate. We're not picked very high, but that's OK. That represents a challenge for anyone, who is competitive.
''The first year here, we were barely competitive. The second year, we were approaching being competitive because we were in a number of ballgames. This year, we will be closer to what we vision we need to be than we ever have before.
''I would like to get this thing turned around, but as I've said since I've been here, it's going to take a firm commitment from people in the community. If they want Division I football to remain here, they need to come out and help make it a reality.''
Christel Tomori shot a 73 yesterday for a 36-hole total of 144 to win the 22nd Pua Melia Invitational golf tournament at the Olomana Golf Links. Pua Melia golf title to Tomori
She won by four strokes over Anna Umemura, who was declared the low-gross winner in the championship flight with a 148.
Tomori has qualified for the U.S. Women's Amateur, to be played in Ann Arbor, Mich., Aug. 13-16. After that, she will go to Venice, Fla., for the Aug. 25-28 LPGA Qualifying School.
Cheryl Grimm, a former University of Hawaii volleyball star who is a Honolulu police sergeant, took overall low-net honors with a 133.
ISLAND MOVERS WIN: The Hawaii Island Movers scored two seventh-inning runs on singles by Lon Yamaguchi and Kevin Okimoto, an error and two wild pitches for a 6-4 Alaska Summer League baseball victory over Mat-Su yesterday at Rainbow Stadium.
Gregg Omori had two hits and two RBIs for the Movers.
HAWAII TEAM WINS SERIES OPENER: Scott Hiramoto of Waialae Iki pitched three solid innings of relief as the Hawaii Rainbows beat Northwest Iowa, 7-5, yesterday in their first game of the Continental Amateur Baseball Association 10-and-Under World Series at Aurelia, Iowa.
QB CLUB TO HONOR GUILLERMO: World Junior Olympic boxing champion Samson Guillermo of Waianae will be given a citation and commendation by the Honolulu Quarterback Club at its Monday luncheon at the Pagoda Hotel.
Guest speakers will include Wally Yonamine, a Farrington grad who is a member of the Japan Baseball Hall of Fame, University of Hawaii athletic director Hugh Yoshida and sports writer Dave Reardon.
Lunch is at 11:30 a.m. The program starts at noon. The public is invited.
GRASS VOLLEYBALL: Some of Hawaii's best indoor players will take their talents outside in the inaugural Hawaii Elite Four-Man Grass Volleyball Championships Aug. 2 at Sea Life Park.
Among those entered are former University of Hawaii standouts Aaron Wilton, Rick Tun, Jason Salmeri and Erik Pichel. Ten teams will compete for a $2,000 cash purse.
The players will conduct a free youth clinic from 9-10 a.m. as well as an autograph session Play begins at 10 a.m. and runs through the 5 p.m. championship.
Admission to the park is $24 for adults, $12 for juniors. Kamaaina and military rates are $12 for adults and $6 for juniors.
A portion of the proceeds will go to the UH athletic scholarship fund.
TOP YACHTS IN KENWOOD CUP: Five national teams and 32 of the Pacific Basin's top international offshore racing yachts will sail in the 11th running of the Royal Hawaiian Ocean Racing Club's biennial competition for the Kenwood Cup starting on Aug. 3.
The event consists of four ocean triangles and four windward-leeward courses off Waikiki, a Honolulu-to-Maui event and a longer race from Oahu to Maui and Kauai.
BRAWLERS AT BLAISDELL: Dan "The Beast" Severn will take on Chris "Ghost" Franco in a featured collision of No Holds Barred fighters in Super Brawl VIII, "Night of Champions," at Blaisdell Arena Aug. 4.
Kawika Pa'aluhi and Travis Fulton will tangle in a middleweight fight and Jay R. Palmer will battle Stephen Paling in a lightweight showdown.
See expanded coverage in Saturday's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
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