ADs will consider trial tournament for small schools

By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer

A state football tournament for small schools will be proposed again this year to Hawai'i's high school athletic directors, and this year it has the backing of a state legislator.

The Hawai'i Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association will hold its annual meeting Sunday through Tuesday on Kaua'i. The ADs appear poised to add judo as the 17th state championship sport, but creating a football championship for small schools is much less certain.

Since 1999, the Hawai'i High School Athletic Association has held an eight-team football tournament. Schools with more than 1,200 students have dominated.

State Rep. Guy Ontai (R-37th Dist., Mililani) is trying to get the Legislature interested in supporting a small-schools championship. Ontai has been a student, teacher and parent at the Kamehameha Schools. "At Kamehameha (enrollment 1,830), we knew in advance which games would be competitive and which would be less taxing than practice," he said.

"It's no fun when you know who is going to win."

Ontai has asked the Legislative Reference Bureau to study the matter and expects a report by the end of summer.

He said "other states have tiered systems (based primarily on enrollment) that appear very reasonable."

The only one of Hawai'i's five high school leagues that has football in two classifications is the 22-team O'ahu Interscholastic Association, although the private-school, 6-team Interscholastic League of Honolulu went to a partly tiered schedule last year. Classification was discussed by Big Island athletic directors last month, but no proposal was made.

The OIA's tiers are based on team records in previous seasons, not enrollment, but in general the larger schools win more football games.

Although its two-tier league has been successful for a decade, OIA athletic directors appear be opposed to a state tournament for small schools.

"Public schools are concerned a lot about Title IX (gender equity)," OIA football adviser Richard Townsend said. "Once you start going to a Division 2 state tournament in football, you have to do it with other sports."

A gender-equity consultant to the OIA has warned the league about increasing boys sports opportunities only, Townsend said.

Another concern, expressed by Townsend and Roy Fujimoto, the Big Island league's executive secretary, is cost. The current football tournament is profitable, but "many athletic directors are concerned that (a small-school football tournament) may not draw," large-enough crowds, Townsend said.

Said Fujimoto: "If you have a small-schools state tournament for football, you will have to do it for other major team sports. Parents will ask, why only football?

"Football earns enough to pay for transporting the teams interisland, but in the other sports schools have to fund-raise to pay for the air fare. That's a major problem."

The only small school to have success in the current football tournament has been 880-student Waimea of Kaua'i, which has won two games and lost three.

Waimea coach Jon Kobayashi, who has won nine straight Kaua'i championships, strongly favors a small-school championship.

"Realistically, once in 30 years does a small school have a team that can go all the way," Kobayashi said. "For smaller schools ... it kind of levels the playing field."

The proposal at the athletic directors association's meeting calls for a one-year trial of the small-school tournament. "If everybody understands it's only a one-year experiment, it might have a chance," Townsend said.

The athletic directors will vote on proposals Tuesday.