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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Bowl talks out of WAC

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Would it still be a Hawai'i Bowl this year without the University of Hawai'i?

Apparently some folks in the Western Athletic Conference like to think so. For it seems there has been talk of doing away with the Warriors' automatic berth for this year's Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, an idea that would be both shortsighted and foolish.

After featuring the Warriors through the first two years, ESPN Regional Television (ERT), the owner and operator of the game, would like to exercise an option to extend the agreement for this year and possibly beyond, provided UH wins the requisite seven of its 12 games to become bowl eligible.

But apparently it is not automatic. As UH athletic director Herman Frazier said yesterday, "I think the arrangement in which U of H was guaranteed a slot in the Hawai'i Bowl is up. It is not firm (UH will get the same terms) for this coming year."

If that holds true, it would be a huge mistake. When the bowl was created in the spring of 2002, ERT was able to guarantee UH a berth the first two years as long as the Warriors were bowl-eligible, as a way of building the bowl's foundation.

Now that Fresno State has played in all four Silicon Valley Classics, Boise State in three of the five Humanitarian Bowls and UH in back-to-back Hawai'i Bowls, there is interest within the conference in spreading things around.

Indeed, under WAC bowl rules only the conference's top two finishers are supposed to be guaranteed berths, which the conference matches on a best-interest-of-the-conference basis.

Strictly interpreted, that could mean if UH finished fourth again, as it did in 2003, it wouldn't be a lock for this — or any other — bowl even with the requisite number of wins.

"Technically, that's all correct," said Pete Derzis, vice president of ERT. "But we also feel that if June (Jones) and Hawai'i have the kind of season everybody thinks they can have, we'd like them in the game again this year."

As attendance in 2003 — an announced 25,551 to watch Hawai'i and Houston — indicated, the game still has some growing to do before it gets to the point where it could survive a year without the hometown team.

To think that Texas-El Paso, San Jose State or anybody else in the conference could put 25,000 — the NCAA-mandated minimum — in the stands at Aloha Stadium now without a UH presence is ridiculous. To even try would be crazy. It would make as much sense as packing UH off to play in the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise.

Insisting on another WAC team in a year in which UH is available is the surest way to poison public good will and kill the bowl before it has a chance to grow.

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