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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, November 19, 2003

UH wants to win in worst way

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

The arrival of the Army football team in town this week is practically the answer to an ongoing prayer by the University of Hawai'i.

Going on five long seasons now, the Warriors have waited for somebody, anybody, on which to unload their biggest millstone.

After sharing the burden of the worst seas000on record in NCAA Division I-A history (0-12) with Colorado State since 1998, here comes a promising candidate to dump the whole mantle on.

And, now, as fate would have it, here's Army at 0-11, a potential heir to what one coach at UH has designated the "golden bagel."

Barring an upset Saturday night at Aloha Stadium, where UH is a 27-point favorite, or on Dec. 6 against Navy, the Black Knights will become the first I-A school to go 0-13 in a season.

Suddenly, the record that nobody wants could be about to move out of Manoa and into a new home back East. The farther away the better, we say.

When Army signed the contract for this game, it was told it could take advantage of the extra game the NCAA allows teams traveling to Hawai'i and play a rare 13th game. Nobody knew, at the time, but now the situation could also end up taking advantage of the Black Knights.

For 32 years, 11 games was the most anybody had lost in a single season — and 34 had done it since Brigham Young in 1949. Then, as the NCAA allowed teams to play more games, the distinction eventually passed to Colorado State in 1981, when the Rams finished their season here. Alas, CSU coach Sark Arslanian, who wasn't wild about having UH in the Western Athletic Conference in the first place, wasn't on hand to take the historic loss, having been fired five weeks earlier.

Off to Fort Collins, Colo., went this most dreaded of NCAA records. There it stayed until 1998 when Michigan ended Fred vonAppen's UH tenure with the record-tying bagel.

Having lived through the making of the record, it is the kind of mark you hate to wish upon anybody, especially one of America's Teams. We'd all be happier if it was passed on to someone more deserving like, say, Southern Methodist, a school that is breaking away from the WAC. And, the Ponies, who are also 0-11 at the moment with a game against Texas Christian remaining, are most deserving.

Unfortunately, because of the scheduling imbalance in the WAC, each school misses one team in the rotation and this year that team is SMU for UH. Otherwise, SMU, which is No. 1 in ESPN.com's Bottom 10, would be headed here and toward its place in history.

Deserving or not, it is about time this most dubious of records got passed on to somebody else, and if UH's prayers are answered, it will be Army.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.