By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Twenty-seven years ago somebody at the University of Hawai'i agreed to put four University of Hawai'i basketball players and their coach in a TV car commercial.

When it was suggested that maybe they should run the idea through the NCAA first, UH officials said they were "pretty sure" it was OK and, anyway, it seemed like a lot of trouble to go through.

That would be the beginning of Case No. 560 and over the resulting two years of NCAA probation and the nearly two decades it took the basketball program to recover, UH had ample occasion to reflect on the necessity of following rules. Even pain-in-the-okole ones.

Maybe it is time for a refresher course in Manoa, where UH was whacked with a public reprimand and $5,000 fine yesterday by the Western Athletic Conference for "its failure to comply" with a new academic certification rule.

The fine wasn't the most disturbing part, even for an athletic department that has better things to do with its money while wrestling with a $1 million deficit. Nor was the unanimity with which the WAC scolded UH.

It was the lightness with which this whole episode has been treated that should raise the biggest concerns. It is the ah-to-hell-with-it dismissal that, if repeated, is sure to some day land UH in bigger trouble with the NCAA.

The certification rule that UH dissed is a worthwhile if awkwardly applied one. It was enacted to ensure that players, particularly those in their final semester of eligibility, don't totally blow off class. It isn't asking too much for athletes to achieve a minimum D-minus in two courses to be eligible to play in the postseason or that their schools make a good faith effort to comply with certifying them.

That the rule is in need of some streamlining — and will likely get tweaked over the upcoming months — is not in dispute. Asking UH to certify its players by Dec. 25 when finals ended Dec. 20 was a hardship, but it didn't have to become the headache that it was turned into by UH.

The school knew last summer the potential for a problem existed. It knew on Nov. 2, when the Warriors clinched the bowl berth, the crunch that was coming. And it knew on Nov. 11, when the WAC advised it to seek a waiver, that something needed to be done.

Yet, it never petitioned for a waiver. Because it didn't, UH got slapped on the wrist and the wallet yesterday.

The hope is that UH will take the lesson to heart and avoid problems later on with the NCAA, the folks who wield the real hammers.