Posted at 5:10 p.m., Thursday, April 26, 2001

High school sports championships get reprieve

By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer

All eight spring high school state championship events were saved today after Superintendent of Schools Paul LeMahieu approved a plan that will allow the tournaments to be held without students missing any class time.

Also under the plan, which was assembled by several prominent athletic officials, respective leagues will be able to complete their regular seasons in full and no tournament games will have to be played on a Sunday. The tournaments also will not interfere with any graduation ceremonies.

LeMahieu announced the decision following a meeting with sports officials, who devised the plan, at his Department of Education office.

In a surprise announcement on Tuesday, LeMahieu had declared all spring state tournaments canceled. However, after an outcry from the public, LeMahieu later agreed to reconsider and allowed officials to present their plan.

"They've done an incredible job," LeMahieu said. "They had to deal not only with issues of logistics, which was a nightmare in itself, but also with issues of competition, fairness and safety for the athletes. They came up with a very clear, positive solution."

The group meeting with LeMahieu yesterday included Hawai'i High School Athletic Association executive secretary Keith Amemiya, O'ahu Interscholastic Association executive director Dwight Toyama, State Sen. Bob Hogue and Board of Education member Winston Sakurai.

That group met in a downtown office at 10:30 a.m. to discuss three proposals — one each from the OIA, Amemiya and Hogue. After taking elements from all three proposals, the group came up with one plan which they presented to LeMahieu at 12:30 p.m.

"We had a quick celebratory pizza lunch, then came over here (to the Queen Liliuokalani Building)," Amemiya said. "It was a huge challenge, and everyone made sacrifices -- one of the things we wanted was something as close to a fair 'settlement' as possible."

Amemiya said the approved plan most resembles the one presented by the OIA. It features scaled-down tournaments (from 12 teams to eight) for baseball and girls basketball.

Revised state tournaments

• Boys golf

Saturday, May 12—at Kapalua Village Course (36 holes).

• Girls golf

Saturday, May 12—on Maui, site TBA (36 holes).

• Boys and girls tennis

Friday-Saturday, May 18-19—at Kiahuna and Poipu Kai, Kaua'i (preliminary rounds).

Monday, May 21—on O'ahu (semifinals and finals), site TBA

• Boys and girls track and field

Friday-Saturday, May 18-19—at War Memorial Stadium, Wailuku, Maui

• Baseball

Friday-Saturday, May 18-19—at Aloha Stadium (quarterfinals on 18; semifinals and finals, 19).

• Girls basketball

Friday-Saturday, May 18-19—at Stan Sheriff Center (quarterfinals 18; semifinals and finals, 19).