UH should honor coach Murakami
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist
Almost since Les Murakami stood in a cloud of dust presiding over the first road grater at the site of what would become the original Rainbow Stadium, it was a given.
And when Murakami marshalled the support for the present-day stadium and the championship banners that would hang in it, it was understood.
The sole question was when the University of Hawai'i would name its baseball stadium for the only Division I coach the program has known.
Now, as the games wind down in the 31st and final season that will be directly tied to the Murakami reign, you would hope that an appropriate occasion has been selected and circled on which to make it all official.
Ideally, the naming ceremony would come May 19th at Rainbow Stadium, the Rainbows' final game of the season, against UH-Hilo.
The final date before the keys to the most successful men's athletic program at UH are officially turned over to the new coach. A time when, it is hoped, Murakami, who has made progress in recovering from a severe November stroke, will be able to share in the applause and recognition due his three decades of vision and service.
Because there has been no clear move in that direction, a series of groups Ü student government, legislature etc. Ü have drawn up resolutions in favor of naming the stadium after Murakami. But, really, the Board of Regents, whose province it is to name buildings on the Manoa campus, shouldn't need a piece of paper to tell them what history fairly shouts.
It shouldn't take a groundswell of public support to do the right thing in a timely manner for the man who helped produce six Western Athletic Conference titles and 11 NCAA regional appearances in a Hall of Fame career.
Regents' guidelines suggest buildings "...will not be named for living individuals and ordinarily within five years of a person's death, except as specifically provided by law."
Of course, the regents are free to make exceptions as they did in the naming of the law school after former State Supreme Court chief justice William S. Richardson, who is still very much with us.
This, too, would seem a case worthy of exception.
For Murakami took a hand-me-down program, one which he borrowed uniforms from his Sheridan AJA team to outfit, and took it to the national championship game in a decade.
He first saw in the rock-strewn quarry area of the lower campus a vision for what was to become one of college baseball's premier facilities. He first envisioned the stadium that has seen nearly 2.3 million pass through its turnstiles.
This season has already passed the halfway point. Soon, the focus will be to look ahead to a new administration and the future.
Before that time comes, it would be fitting for UH to take time out to honor its past and the man who made so much of it possible.
