Foreign flavor adds a lot at UH

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser columnist

As the NCAA increasingly takes aim at eligibility questions surrounding foreign athletes, a lot of people have begun to wonder out loud why the University of Hawai'i bothers to recruit internationally.

Back again are some of the voices of criticism from the past season when the Rainbow men's basketball team, which had seven of 13 scholarship players from abroad, came under fire for its reliance on foreign players.

More than one administrator entangled in the reams of NCAA paper work has probably muttered that it would be a lot easier if UH just recruited U.S. citizens.

Easier, perhaps. But undoubtedly less successful and less interesting.

For part of the spice of Rainbow athletics over the years is that the teams have been everything their nickname had implied. Theirs is a tapestry that comes with having athletes from here, there and everywhere.

It is having players from Hilo to Haifa represent UH and having fans embrace them regardless of origin. Remember the Hawaiian and Israeli flags that used to wave side by side in the Stan Sheriff Center when Yuval Katz performed? Or, the fans who held up "Que Beleza!" (That's beautiful!) signs when Wahine volleyball player Veronica Lima, who is from Brazil, stuffed a shot?

There are also practical considerations. While UH has long fought geography in recruiting high school players from the Mainland, it has been much less a handicap internationally. When you're coming from Australia, Hawai'i is closer than California. And if you're already coming from the Balkans, what's a couple thousand more miles?

Cutbacks in the scholarships for non-revenue sports and new NCAA rules that restrict the amount of scholarships basketball can award to five in a single year and eight over a two-year period have made foreign athletes an attractive option to reliance on junior college players.

Consider, for example, that 20 percent of the players on the rosters of men's final four volleyball teams were considered international players. Three of the four teams in the women's final four had at least one foreign starter.

Overall, the number of foreigners in athletics at UH probably doesn't account for too much more than the 8 percent of the Manoa student body that international students comprised last year.

Foreign athletes also tend to be more mature and more focused as students, something that not only bolsters graduation rates and grade point averages but can rub off on other players.

People whose views on distant corners of the world are too often shaped by stereotypes or 10-second CNN sound bites also have an opportunity to mix and come to understand those they might not otherwise meet.

It is part of the universe to which the concept of a university makes reference and a portion UH should retain.