Hawai'i seeks to rebuild WAC
By Stephen Tsai and Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writers
The University of Hawai'i is committed to helping rebuild the Western Athletic Conference and hopes to take an active role as the soon-to-be senior member, Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert said.
Englert will represent UH at the annual meeting of the conference Board of Directors, June 2-4, at Half Moon Bay, Calif., when the remaining members work on filling in the gaps left by the announced departures of Texas-El Paso, Rice, Southern Methodist and Tulsa.
UTEP's departure on July 1, 2005, will leave UH as the senior member. Hawai'i joined the WAC in 1979.
"I felt that we had a good WAC and that we have now a challenge to restrengthen and rebuild the WAC in an environment that is, in the end, beneficial," Englert said.
"I think we have to re-think the WAC," he added. "The WAC has been good for us, and we have been good for them, and you'll not hear me saying anything to the contrary. I'd like to sit down with my colleagues and make sure we get all the ingredients ready to create an environment that will lead us to a WAC that is as strong as the one we had the year before or even before that."
For that to happen, Englert said, "depends on how these very disparate universities (choose) to work together as a team (or) whether they work as individuals just trying to look for the best interests of their individual institutions. That's the big question. The more successful conferences have made, from my observation, very business-like decisions along the way. And, they have, indeed, through their coherence, maximized the outcome for their (members)."
Three schools — Idaho, Louisiana-Lafayette and North Texas — are being considered to replace UTEP as the conference looks at eight-, nine- and 10-team models.
"We have to see what makes business sense," Englert said. "The question is not whether I like or not like the other teams. It is a question of straight-forward analysis and we haven't done that very often I have to say."
Reach Stephen Tsai at stsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8051. Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
