By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

If Predrag Savovic was coming to the United States to play basketball now ... Well, under a rule expected to take effect this year, Savovic and some athletes like him soon wouldn't be allowed to play for the University of Hawai'i Rainbows — or anybody else.

After all the controversy surrounding the eligibility of foreign athletes in college these past few years, you knew it wouldn't be long before the rules were tightened and loopholes slammed shut.

Pending what is expected to be swift approval by the NCAA Board of Directors this month, foreign athletes entering U.S. schools for the first time after Aug. 1 would be subject to more stringent initial eligibility requirements.

Athletes in all sports who have finished high school and then played a season or less of organized competition in their sport before attending a U. S. school, would have to sit out a season in residence at that college before being eligible to play.

More drastic is that an athlete who has finished high school and played more than one season of subsequent organized competition would be completely ineligible for NCAA competition.

"It could have a big impact," said Vince Goo, Wahine basketball coach.

"The loopholes are closing," said Daniel Arakaki, UH Compliance Coordinator.

Indeed, at UH where nearly all 19 sports have at least one international athlete, coaches will have to be diligent in researching a prospect's background and more selective in who they offer scholarships to.

Take the case of Savovic, a two-time All-Western Athletic Conference selection. He graduated from high school in Yugoslavia 1994. Under the proposal, he would have had to come directly to this country after high school to have had four years of eligibility. According to UH, he spent at least two years after high school playing in various leagues before enrolling at Alabama-Birmingham.

Under the new rule, he wouldn't have even made it to UAB, much less UH. And, that's too bad because like Savovic, many of the players have brought a lot to their schools and the game.

Nor would he have been alone among international athletes who have played over the years at Manoa. On Rainbow men's basketball teams over the past two years alone, UH says four players would have been ineligible under the new proposal.

But Savovic could have been the poster player for the self-serving complaints by some opposing coaches who felt Savovic, as a 25-year old with international experience sometimes playing against 18- and 19-year-olds had an advanatge and give the Rainbows one.

You'll notice, Goo observed, "the complaints come mostly from the coaches who didn't have foreign players."