Maui stadium gets ready for Warriors
By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Bureau
WAILUKU, Maui — Everyone from Mayor James "Kimo" Apana to the inmates at the Maui Community Correctional Center has an interest in seeing that War Memorial Stadium is in tip-top shape for tonight's season-opening football game between the University of Hawai'i and the University of Montana.
Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser
The mayor has been visiting the field almost daily to check on the lights and other details. Inmate crews from the jail's Community Work-
Parks worker Gilbert Benavides uses spray paint to create an "H" at War Memorial Stadium for tonight's game.
line program have been painting the field, erecting fences, pressure-washing bleachers and touching up the press box and other buildings.
Renowned turf expert George Toma directed county parks workers yesterday as they sprayed green and white designs at midfield and along the sidelines, mowed the grass and made last-minute fixes. Toma, who has prepared the fields for 35
Super Bowls, was brought in by Maui County two weeks ago to provide emergency first aid to the stadium turf after an ill-timed irrigation project left the playing surface in terrible shape.
"I wish I had two more weeks, but it's not bad," Toma said. "I've seen worse fields in the NFL."
Toma borrowed some Montana receivers from a practice session Thursday across the street at Keopuolani Park to run some patterns at the stadium and declared the footing good.
Despite restrictions on alcohol and hibachi use, fans will be treated to a post-card setting at the stadium. Those sitting in the bleachers facing west will have a view of '?ao Valley in the West Maui Mountains, and those in the main bleachers facing east will see the glimmer of windsurf sails off the island's north shore and Haleakala.
