UH will be at home with WAC for awhile

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

Time to get familiar with those Boise State school colors. Better get out the Rand McNally atlas and find the way to Ruston, La., home of Louisiana Tech.

Crank up that rivalry with Fresno State and sign up for the frequent diner program at the Rib Crib in Tulsa, Okla.

The University of Hawai'i is going to be here for awhile. "Here" being its current athletic address, the Western Athletic Conference.

For better or worse — and there is some of both to be found in their situation — the Rainbows/Warriors/Wahine aren't going anywhere. After 22 years, seniority second only to Texas-El Paso among current WAC members, they aren't leaving the league anytime soon.

All that burning speculation about whether UH or Fresno State — or both — would be invited to join the Mountain West Conference is moot now. So, too, is the question of whether they would have accepted and at what terms since the MWC presidents extended the moratorium on expansion through 2004. And because schools have to give a year's notice before leaving, this effectively freezes the Warriors and Bulldogs in place for at least five years.

"Five years without speculation and rumor," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said hopefully.

Of course, the MWC presidents are free to lift the moratorium with a conference call. Or, as we have seen, a furtive meeting in the Denver airport.

But there is little reason for them to run a reversal at this point. The MWC's seven-year, $40 million television deal with ABC and ESPN doesn't come up for renegotiation until 2005, and with no promise of additional money in the interim, why carve an additional slice out of the pie?

There had been considerable speculation — hope? — in some quarters that the MWC football coaches' desire for balanced four-and-four conference scheduling would prompt the conference to add a ninth member for 2003. But the financial hit for members and the problems it would have created in other sports apparently killed expansion.

What UH does know is where their immediate future lies until the next round of conference musical chairs arrives. And, it is to be the WAC since nobody else is knocking on its door and independent status really isn't much of an option right now.

Staying in the WAC carries with it pluses and minuses. The WAC has to look good to men's and women's basketball, baseball and softball, for whom MWC membership would now be a competitive step backward. Meanwhile, football and Wahine volleyball could be in a more competitive, more visible showcase with the MWC.

Now that it knows where it stands and with an idea for how long, it is up to UH to make the best of the situation and work toward its future. It behooves the school to upgrade its programs so that when the next shakeup of the landscape comes there will be some options available.