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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, September 8, 2003

UH receiver Ilaoa will miss two games with knee injury

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

University of Hawai'i starting receiver Nate Ilaoa will miss at least the next two football games because of a partially torn knee ligament.

"It's going to be OK. I don't want to push it," Nate Ilaoa said.

Chad Owens was out yesterday because of an infected left ankle.

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"I'm not going to go on the trip," Ilaoa told reporters after yesterday's afternoon practice. The Warriors play consecutive road games against Southern California Saturday and Nevada-Las Vegas Sept. 19. They will stay on the Mainland between games.

In the season opener against Appalachian State on Aug. 30, Ilaoa, a third-year sophomore, was hurt while making a cut move. A magnetic resonance imaging, which used magnetic fields to create a picture of the body's interior, showed a partial tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in the right knee.

In some cases, an athlete can play with a partial tear, although he would risk further injury. Surgery would require at least six months of rehabilitation.

For now, Ilaoa will not schedule surgery. "I'm going to take it easy," he said. "It's going to be OK. I don't want to push it."

Clifton Herbert, a fifth-year senior, and Gerald Welch, a fourth-year junior, will replace Ilaoa at right slotback.

Meanwhile, starting left slotback Chad Owens did not participate in yesterday's practice because of an infected left ankle.

Last week, he suffered a cut. "I was scratching it, and it got infected," said Owens, a fourth-year junior.

Owens was prescribed antibiotics, but he stopped taking the medication before completing the 10-day cycle.

"I thought (the infection) went away," he said. "I should have finished the bottle. It came back. It came back worse."

After returning home following a day of watching football and shopping Saturday, he noticed the left ankle had ballooned. "It got fat," he said. "I said, 'Damn.' The doctors said it was infected, and they gave me some more antibiotic pills."

The swelling eased yesterday afternoon, but he does not know when he will be cleared to practice.

"It's not my call," he said. "I'll see the doctors (today) and see what happens."


• Quiet time: Practice was a lot less boisterous yesterday with the absence of offensive line coach Mike Cavanaugh, who was on a recruiting trip in San Diego.

Cavanaugh, whose high-decibel instructions bring grief to linemen and amusement to spectators, was the only assistant coach to recruit on the Mainland this weekend. UH coach June Jones said the other assistants scouted Hawai'i high school games.

Division I coaches are allowed six weekends to scout prospects. Jones said UH, which plays at Southern California on Saturday, will not recruit in Los Angeles this weekend.

"We'll just do our phone calls and stuff," Jones said.

He said he wants to devote most of the remaining recruiting weekends to scouting local high school games.

Jones and wide receivers coach Ron Lee instructed the offensive linemen yesterday.


• Quality time: Jones said he regards the upcoming 10-day road trip as an opportunity to "create the bonds and chemistry needed to be a good football team."

UH leaves Thursday afternoon for Los Angeles to play USC Saturday. From Sunday through Sept. 18, the team will stay in Ontario, Calif., then play UNLV Sept. 19 in a nationally televised game. The team returns Sept. 20.

As a coach with the Atlanta Falcons, Jones recalled, "we stayed out for two weeks. We played San Francisco and the Raiders back-to-back. We stayed on the West Coast the whole time. It was actually pretty good. It's more of a family atmosphere."

When the Warriors played consecutive road games against Wyoming and Iowa in 1991, Bob Wagner, who was the coach at the time, scheduled a sidetrip to Chicago.

Jones said this trip calls for only "school work and football, but we'll midstream adjust as we see how it goes."

Wagner, now the athletic director at Kamehameha Schools' Big Island campus, attended practice yesterday.