UH is no exception to the rule
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer
The NCAA decision makers still don't get it. Or, perhaps, they just don't want to.
Either way, the University of Hawai'i still has a battle on its hands to ensure the survival of its critical basketball exemption.
Although the NCAA Board of Directors yesterday gave sponsors of early-season tournaments at least a two-year reprieve by postponing approval of legislation that would have placed a hard ceiling on regular-season game limits, UH still isn't out of harm's way after 2003-2004.
That threat to its Rainbow Classic and other tournaments came through loud and clear during the teleconference from Indianapolis. When chairman Brit Kirwan, Ohio State president, was asked if the board drew a distinction between UH and the other tournaments, he responded with a terse: "No."
Never mind that the original exemption was the brainchild of then-UH athletic director Henry "Hank" Vasconcellos in the 1950s and was passed solely to encourage travel to Hawai'i so the Rainbows would have somebody to play. Or that if the exemption has been abused it was the NCAA that allowed all manner of others to piggyback the exemption in the last 20 years.
Never mind that the Rainbows are the only Division I member sponsoring a tournament in a field grown thick with commercial enterprises.
"That issue was never addressed by the board and we certainly see no distinction," Kirwan said.
Therein lies the battle for UH. Over the next two years it needs to impress upon NCAA decision makers that there is a critical distinction.
With the help of a Western Athletic Conference-authored amendment, they nearly succeeded in separating UH from the other tournaments last month. But the Management Council, which is composed of Division I athletic directors and conference commissioners, voted it down, 24 1/2-23 1/2.
Yesterday a board spokesman said, "We want to make very clear that the board is very interested in putting a limit on the number of games a school can play."
With that as a warning for the future, UH needs to open the eyes of the powers-that-be to its plight.
"It buys some time," said Karl Benson, WAC commissioner. Time, UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida recognizes "to get our message out there."
At risk is the survival of the 37-year-old Rainbow Classic and other early-season tournaments that have grown up around it, the United Airlines Tipoff Tournament and Nike Festival.
For without the exemption that gives teams playing in those tournaments a waiver from the NCAA limit on games and an opportunity to recover their travel costs by playing an additional home game, there is declining incentive to play in a tournament here.
That's a future the Rainbows clearly don't want to contemplate.
