Running on a rainbow
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer
There will be no mistaking the nickname of choice for the University of Hawai'i women's track team when its new facility is finished.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
It will be an eight-lane rainbow.
Cooke Field's pitted and patched track, top, will be refurbished and the lanes painted in blue, green, yellow and red, above.
"It will be quite unique," said Marilyn Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano, assistant athletic director and senior women's administrator.
Track coach Carmyn James said lanes one and two will be blue, three and four green, five and six yellow, and seven and eight red. The infield will be green with the kapa "H" logo in the end zones.
"When you fly over it, there'll be no doubt it is the Rainbows' track," James said. "We had a totally unique opportunity to have (a track) unlike any other school."
Bids are due a week from today for what is expected to be an estimated $1.4 million capital improvement project. Construction is scheduled to begin May 20, immediately after graduation ceremonies, and be completed by Sept. 17, in time for the opening of cross country season, UH officials said.
The current track is 9 years old. It is strewn with potholes and gaps in the artificial surface that have kept the 2-year-old Rainbow Wahine track program from being able to play host to NCAA meets.
The new track will be made by Mondo America, whose surfaces were used at Olympic Stadium in Sydney, and the Atlanta Olympic Stadium. However, the surface that will be used at UH will be of a newer variety created in 1998, UH officials said.
The project will primarily involve the outside of the track. Complete renovation of the infield will come later, Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano said. UH officials said they eventually hope to have FieldTurf installed in the infield for track, soccer, football and intramural use.
James said a booster is donating plants to ring the outside of the field and students will make landscaping suggestions.
The state also has appropriated money to extend third-floor athletic department offices and renovate the men's training room, UH officials said.
