Hawai'i calls time out for 'Bows
By Susan Hooper
Advertiser Staff Writer
For two brief hours yesterday morning, the business of the Islands was basketball, as everyone from CEOs to sales clerks set their work aside to watch the University of Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors take on the Xavier Musketeers in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
"I was in a meeting, but I cut it short and now I'm up watching it on a giant screen in our board room," said Walter Dods, chairman and chief executive officer of First Hawaiian Bank, just before Xavier tied the score 41-41 with 14 minutes left in the game.
Joichi Saito, chairman and CEO of Central Pacific Bank, watched the UH game with other local executives. Cheers turned into silence as a 7-point halftime lead dwindled.
"Brutal. Brutal," Dods muttered as Xavier overtook Hawai'i.
Workers not blessed with big-screen TVs in their offices were keeping tabs in more low-tech ways.
"One of our stylists is listening to it on the radio," said Charlene Ka'apana, a receptionist with His & Hers Hair Salon on Wai'alae Avenue. "He's doing hair and he's got the earpiece in his ear. He comes and tells us what's going on."
Kris Shinno, a computer designer with Rainbow Sports Hawai'i on South Beretania Street, had the television on but kept working as UH fell behind in the second half.
"Just every so often we're checking up on the score," he said.
Other companies had bigger ideas. Central Pacific Bank threw a game-time bash that drew about 50 downtown executives. Rath-er than slowing business, the party helped grease the wheels of commerce, said Alwyn Chikamoto, senior vice president of the bank's commercial finance group.
"Everybody is exchanging business cards," he said. "Sports brings people together."
Productivity may have slowed somewhat state-wide while the 'Bows were sweating out what would be a 70-58 loss loss to Xavier.
"I suppose that's acceptable, being that it's the homegrown favorite on TV," Shinno said.
