The administrator: Only a minority will truly benefit
Advertiser Staff
From the perspective of Dwight Toyama, the man who runs the 22 public high-school O'ahu Interscholastic Association, to have or not have state championships in this strike-battered spring is a matter of "your overriding philosophy."
Toyama is an administrator who must wrestle with budgets, lobby the Legislature, defend officials, coach coaches, and be a public relations person for his league, but above all else, this former Kaimuki High teacher and football coach sees himself as an educator.
"Starting next Tuesday," he said, "we have 24 days, including three Saturdays, before the first graduations, and we haven't got halfway through either our baseball or girls basketball schedules.
"We need to try to accommodate and give opportunities for competition to as many students as possible. I fully support the superintendent in not allowing any lost class time for travel or games.
"You have to step back and look at the big picture.
"If state tournaments are held May 18-19, we only have two weeks to finish our seasons. We would need to certify our champions and other state entries by May 12. For everybody else, the season would be over.
"Should we compromise our season for the 15 percent or less of the athletes who qualify for states at the expense of the other 85 percent?
"If they have to make the tournaments single elimination in order to fit them into a weekend, that's one game for some teams, instead of giving everybody in the league a few more games."
Toyama says his league is strongly opposed to holding the state tournament over the Memorial Day weekend, May 26-28.
"Five of our schools will have graduations on the 25th or 26th. You shouldn't put the kids in a situation where they have to choose between a state tournament game and attending their own graduation. That's not fair."
And he says the OIA is opposed to Sunday athletic events because of the religious convictions of some of its students and families.
"We're not against states, we are trying to figure out what to do, how to do it.
"I don't have the answer for these things."
