St. Louis looking to fill forfeited football date
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By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
Saying he will not allow Damien High to renege on its pledge to forfeit this season's football game between the teams, St. Louis School coach and athletic director Cal Lee said he will seek a replacement game.
"We're moving on," Lee said. "Right now, I have that game (against Damien) as a bye on my calendar. I'm going to fill it. How can I wait? It would be unfair to our kids."
Damien's pledge to forfeit its two scheduled games against St. Louis led to the Interscholastic League of Honolulu's decision to restructure its football format. Under the new format, St. Louis and Damien will meet only once this coming season. Damien president Brother Greg O'Donnell said the Monarchs will forfeit that game, citing concerns over his players' safety against the deeper Crusaders.
The league allows Damien up until the week before the game to officially forfeit, but Lee said that is too late.
"You can't pick and choose," Lee said. "If (O'Donnell) forfeited, why should he be allowed to say later, 'Oh, I want to play now.' He said he's not going to play. That's fine. We've agreed, and we're not going to force him to play. We're going to move on. It's too late for him to change his mind."
The new format will leave each ILH team with seven regular-season games — six for Damien and St. Louis. Each team played 10 regular-season games last year.
Lee said St. Louis has two preseason games scheduled, and he is seeking two exhibition opponents. He has contacted officials from high schools in California and Nebraska, and is not opposed to traveling to the Mainland for an exhibition.
He also said he will look into playing teams from the Neighbor Islands or exhibitions against ILH teams. He said it is unlikely that a team from the public school O'ahu Interscholastic Association will be available for an in-season exhibition.
"Six games in the regular season aren't enough," Lee said. "Our intermediate team has more games (10) than we do. I don't think it's fair for a varsity program to play only six games. It's not fair to the kids. We're going to look and see what we can do."
