UH gets glimpse of what future can be
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Sports Columnist
For a few hours Friday it was almost as if the tumultuous breakup of the old Western Athletic Conference had never happened.
The University of Hawai'i and Brigham Young, on national television and surrounded by 63,085, were toe to toe again on the same football field in Provo, Utah, for the first time in five years.
This was the way it had been for 18 shared years of WAC membership — some of the best, most memorable days UH athletics have enjoyed.
And, the way it might be someday be again?
You certainly had to wonder — and you should not have been alone in doing so.
Not when there was a good portion of the UH administration — President Evan Dobelle, Manoa chancellor Peter Englert, interim vice president of academic affairs Deane Neubauer and athletic director Herman Frazier among others— on hand looking things over and presumably taking notes.
All on a night when the BYU administration was out in force for the announcement of a new $50 million indoor practice field, training facility and athletic office complex, all part of the school's self-billed "athletic initiative for excellence" for which ground is to be broken this year.
Lights, cameras, crowds, money. If there was a scene that should have spoken of big time athletics to a new UH administration that has talked of charting an ambitious course for the school, this was it.
Looking out from the stadium luxury boxes over a campus dotted with quality facilities, UH leaders got some insight on what kind of price tag it would take to be competitive.
For its $20.4 million annual athletic budget — less than half of what some marquee schools spend but still about $4 million more than what UH operates on — BYU has been able to be a regular Sears Cup Top 20 contender and the power in the Mountain West Conference.
And just in case there was any curiosity about the Mountain West, commissioner Craig Thompson was also in attendance.
For conspiracy theorists — and you didn't have to be Oliver Stone to come up with a few — this was fertile ground, indeed.
Maybe that's another reason that WAC commissioner Karl Benson, who often takes in national TV games involving conference members, returned to LaVell Edwards Stadium for the first time since the 1998 breakup.
Indeed, the only half-kidding joke around the WAC was that he might have been there as a chaperone for the Warriors, just to keep an eye on things.
But the rest of the WAC need not have worried — for now, at least. The Mountain West still has a moratorium on expansion beyond the current eight members. What's more, Thompson said expansion would likely be predicated on its value to the next television contract, which isn't due for renegotiation for at least two more years.
In the meantime, this weekend should have given the UH administration a lot to take home and think about.
