UH needs fair shake in hosting

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist

No women's college volleyball team in the country has gotten on more planes or traveled more miles since Sept. 11 than the University of Hawai'i Wahine.

None have had more hours in the air to ponder the potential dangers of present-day flight or more often faced first-hand the difficulties and delays that now accompany travel.

So, after more than 20,000 post-Sept. 11 miles, it has to be particularly galling for the Wahine, of all people, to be told by the NCAA that when it comes to the upcoming playoffs, they might have to travel even more "in order to minimize air travel and mitigate risk, inconvenience and travel delays to the greatest extent possible" for other teams.

The NCAA this week, in a memorandum to its members, announced the new "policies" for all fall playoffs in light of what it terms "the unstable world climate."

In other words, even though the Wahine's 22-4 record to date would normally entitle them to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, they might be ordered to hit the road instead.

Better, the NCAA could reason, to send UH to the continent than bring three teams to Hawai'i. Better prepare to pack, is how many at UH have interpreted the policy. As Wahine coach Dave Shoji observed, "It doesn't sound like they want to send anybody here."

After more than three months of play calculated to help determine not only who qualifies for the 64-team NCAA Tournament but how they are seeded and where they play, the Wahine are now told it might actually mean very little. Despite a No. 3 seed in their region, the Wahine could end up on the home floor of someone seeded well below them.

And that's a shame for several reasons. For at a time when President George W. Bush is telling the nation, "A terrorism alert is not a signal to stop your life," the NCAA is sending the opposite message.

At a time when the nation's travel industry in general and Hawai'i's in particular are taking hard economic hits, the NCAA is saying stay close to home.

While Hawai'i government and tourism officials have been on the road trying to entice travelers back to the islands, the NCAA seems intent on discouraging long-range travel. As UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida puts it, "I think, looking at the whole thing, Hawai'i is probably the safest place to travel to right now."

This NCAA policy isn't something UH should just accept quietly, without protest. With the playoffs opening just three weeks from today, it behooves school officials and, indeed, whatever government support they can enlist, to be proactive on this, lobbying the NCAA early, hard and loud.

They shouldn't wait until after the fact, when an NCAA selection committee blindly following the guidelines, has already sent UH packing.