Posted on: Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Football showdown that's long overdue

For generations, we've watched the cream of the state's high school football players go on to success and fame in college and the NFL.

And for just as long the question has loomed: How would Hawai'i's best high school football teams stack up against the top schools on the continent?

Up until now, that's pretty much all it has been, intriguing speculation to mull over in the offseason. But, after decades of wondering out loud, the showdown — and the answers it is sure to provide — look to be just seven months away.

Come Sept. 21, De La Salle High of Concord, Calif., No. 1 in the USA Today national rankings and winner of 125 consecutive games, comes to play St. Louis School; and No. 3-ranked Long Beach (Calif.) Poly takes on Kahuku in an Aloha Stadium doubleheader.

Occasionally, teams of some note have appeared here for preseason games and, once in a while, local teams have even ventured to the Mainland to play top-drawer competition.

But never has there been anything even approaching the scale of what the Hawai'i High School Athletic Association plans to deliver this year. Never has there been a high school event of this order to set your calendar by.

This is, as retired St. Louis football coach Cal Lee put it, the high school equivalent of, "(the University of) Hawai'i playing the University of Miami."

Such an attraction does not come cheap or without a gamble, of course. The HHSAA will be on the hook for as much as $100,000, the costs inherent in running the whole thing. It will require 10,000-15,000 paying fans and some willing sponsors to pick up the freight.

It is just that kind of commitment, not to mention the labyrinthine politics to be negotiated, that has kept it from happening before. But when Keith Amemiya took over as executive director of the HHSAA, he apparently took to heart the mandate to take Hawai'i high school sports to a higher level. Amemiya accepted and has been up to the challenge of thinking beyond the narrow borders within which the HHSAA had for too long confined itself.

In short, what we have come Sept. 21 is the kind of stage high school football here needs and has longed for. The HHSAA has a rare date during the UH football schedule when the Warriors are out of town to not only capture the imagination of the local sporting public but also earn some money to help underwrite the less profitable sports.

There also exists an opportunity to validate the quality of Hawai'i football to an audience beyond the legion of college recruiters who, in annually flocking here, have given it the biggest testimonials.

It has been through the success of just those players that the belief has taken hold that Hawai'i football teams can compete with the best. Finally, comes the opportunity to prove it.