honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Hawai'i athletes cope with California fires

By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer

Maui's Chaz Inouye has avoided the California wildfires while attending Loyola Marymount, but he can't escape the heavy smoke that's surrounding the school.

Inouye, a sophomore golfer, is one of several Hawai'i student-athletes attending California colleges who are coping with wildfires that have led schools to cancel airplane flights, postpone games and rearrange sport schedules.

At least 13 wildfires have swept through sections of Southern California, destroying nearly 1,900 homes, causing at least 16 deaths and burning more than half a million acres of land from the Mexican border to the Ventura-Los Angeles county line.

"Actually the whole sky is smoky," said Inouye (St. Anthony 2002), one of 12 Hawai'i student-athletes attending the Los Angeles school. "I haven't seen anything like this. I can actually smell the smoke."

The fires have not posed any danger to Loyola Marymount because the major outbreaks are about 45 miles to the east, Inouye said. Still, the blazes have been blamed for a flight cancellation for the golf team and have affected outdoor practices.

"I know training has been an inconvenience with cross country because the smoke is pretty thick," said Loyola Marymount sports information director John Shaffer. "The last couple of days there was ash in the air — even all the way out here."

The LMU men's golf team was supposed to compete in the two-day 2003 Santa Clara Invitational at Silver Creek Country Club on Monday, but they could not get a flight out of Los Angeles because of the fires, Inouye said.

"Our flight was basically canceled, and no flights were going in and out," Inouye said. "We just had a tournament down in that area (Simi Valley) last week. Good thing it wasn't then."

The Santa Clara tournament was the last competition for the semester, so practices are not a priority at the moment, Inouye said. Inouye added "there's not really a sense of worry on our campus yet" because the fires are not near the school.

At Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, a wildfire crept within 2 1/2 miles of the school on Saturday, but the school was not forced to evacuate, according to sports information director Kelly Beck. There are seven Hawai'i student-athletes enrolled at the school this fall and winter, Beck said.

Beck said poor air quality in the Los Angeles basin forced Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic officials to postpone its scheduled Oct. 25 football game against visiting Occidental until Nov. 22.

In addition, a men's water polo match scheduled today at Cal Lutheran in Thousand Oaks, Calif., has been postponed until Nov. 7, and today's women's and men's soccer matches against visiting La Verne are questionable, Beck said. Senior defender Shelly Suzuki (Punahou 2000) plays for Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

"Right now our general rule of thumb is this: If you can smell smoke outside, we're not going to practice outside," said Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's soccer coach Jennifer Clark. "So far we've been able to smell smoke all week."

Reach Brandon Masuoka at bmasuoka@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2458.