Warrior season ticket sales down 3 percent
By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
The University of Hawai'i has sold an estimated 23,950 season tickets for football, down about 750 from last season, school officials said yesterday.
But UH associate athletic director Jim Donovan said the decline was not substantial considering the economy is slowing down. UH was 3-9 last year, and the first game at Aloha Stadium is not until Sept. 29.
Donovan said about 92 percent — 22,725 — of last year's 24,700 season-ticket holders renewed their orders. UH signed about 1,225 new season-ticket holders.
While the advertised deadline to buy season tickets has passed, the school will still sell season packages for a limited time, Donovan said.
"We want to accommodate (ticket buyers), but I don't know how much longer we can do that," Donovan said.
Donovan said individual-game tickets go on sale Sept. 10 at the Aloha Stadium Box Office.
• Bass catches on: UH coach June Jones said even if freshman running back Mike Bass does not start, he will be used in "35 to 40 plays a game."
Last season, UH averaged 70.7 offensive plays per game.
Jones said he is impressed with Bass' speed and receiving skills.
In the past 25 years, only three UH running backs — Gary Allen in 1978, Nuu Faaola in 1982 and Charles Tharp in 1997 — won starting jobs as true freshmen.
• On the air: Hawai'i Public Television's first weekly coaches show — "XL: The UH Sports Show" — debuts next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. on KHET.
Two-thirds of the 29-minute show will be spent on UH football; the final third on Wahine volleyball.
Don Robbs will serve as host. Scott Culbertson is the program's producer and reporter.
The show was moved from KFVE, which owns the local television rights to UH sports. Each weekly program will cost $3,000 to produce, an amount that will be paid by the station. UH will pay the appearance fees for its coaches.
Because the program is on a publicly subsidized station, only underwriter advertisements ("This program was made possible because of a grant from ...") are allowed, at the beginning and ending of each show. There will be no in-program commercials.
• Big Sky is descending: More than 2,000 fans from Montana will be attending the Sept. 8 game against UH at Wailuku's War Memorial Stadium.
Several fans will be traveling on charter planes arranged through the school. Others, according to Montana spokesman Dave Guffey, will make the 200-mile drive to Spokane, where airfares are less expensive.
This is the largest group of fans to attend a Montana road game, Guffey said.
"They do it because they are very loyal fans," Guffey said. "And, let's face it, it's Hawai'i. Everybody wants to go to Hawai'i."
• Carrot crop: Quarterback Jared Flint no longer will be compared to comedian Carrot Top, star of several long-distance telephone commercials.
Yesterday, Flint's bright red hair was cut short. When asked why he had long hair during training camp, when the team practices up to five hours each day, and short hair for the start of one-a-day practices, Flint said, "Reverse psychology?"
Later, he offered, the shorter haircut "will give me a little more aerodynamics when I run the option."
The right-handed Flint, who did not play last year after undergoing surgery to repair torn ligaments in his right rotator cuff, said he is healthy.
"I have no fear (of injury) going into a game," said Flint, who is competing with Nick Rolovich and Shawn Withy-Allen for the job as top understudy to starter Tim Chang. "The shoulder is fine, and I'm fine. I'm pretty confident."
He also said his sister, Jodee, who is a lawyer, is filing his appeal for an extra year. Flint attended Indiana in 1997, then played two seasons at Orange Coast (Calif.) College. This will be his final season unless the NCAA grants him a medical exemption for last season.
