We pay attention to the jump shooters, the rebounders, the middle infielders who work together like a ballet around second base and all the others who compete from fall through summer; we like sports, it’s what we do. ADVERTISING We
We pay attention to the jump shooters, the rebounders, the middle infielders who work together like a ballet around second base and all the others who compete from fall through summer; we like sports, it’s what we do.
But our interest has never been limited to marveling at these small competitive chores we only see in competitive environments. What keeps us engaged is the churn.
You have to go deeper for that, to realize the underpinning of our thirst for more that goes beyond the exploits we see on the fields and courts of the sports we follow. We are here for the repetition and renewal, to see what our teams do over a period of time, not just now and then.
This is how we distinguish what’s real and what’s fluffery, how we know if we can rely on the direction set by our teams. My own bias is with the Oakland Raiders, a team I fell into love with in the early 1960s when everyone around me in Seattle seemed to be 49ers fans.
The Raiders had a 30-minute highlight show on an independent station I happened to catch by accident one week, and it changed everything. They weren’t like the stodgy 49ers, they threw the ball deep, they were daring and exciting. They became my team and over the years I could always rely on what owner Al Davis said, but when he died after years of declining health and on-field fortunes, I had to sharpen my perspective.
It was depressingly scattershot until Reggie McKenzie was brought in as the new general manager. McKenzie has been a straight shooter from the very first, he told us fans there would be a couple of difficult years, but he outlined exactly what they would do to improve and they followed through.
This fall, I expect the Raiders to be a playoff team once again because it has all changed, for the better.
This is similar to the interest some people have in movies, for example. The film buffs want to know more about these actors, directors and producers, they maintain a base of information on new movies coming out, they take time away from work if necessary to watch the Oscars and the other award shows and when it’s over, they do what we do.
And so it goes here on the Big Island, just as they do the same thing in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles where interested followers are feeling refreshed by the new season, by reacquainting themselves with the familiar faces they know and the new ones they want to know.
At the season opening doubleheader for the Hawaii Hilo Vulcans baseball team Saturday, all of this came into view. Out on the mound, Eric Vega was delivering a propitious effort against Hawaii Pacific, which has the kind of baseball team UHH hopes to be one day. The Sharks were 19-17 in conference play a year ago, 30-20 throughout the season in which the Vulcans were 7-17 and 9-33 for the season, yet they split four games at the end of the season, indicating perhaps that success isn’t so far away.
From a personal standpoint, I thought there was an indication of proximity to a winning culture before the Sharks came in. Prior to that, UHH hosted Cal Baptist, a program closer to Division I, where it’s headed in another year, than it is connected to Division II, but the Vulcans pressed CBU, hard. The three Cal Baptist wins were by 1-0, 2-1 and 2-0, games that could have gone either way.
You got the idea that coach Kallen Miyataki was in the serious process of building something worthwhile, so it was encouraging to see Vega pitch the same kind of game he delivered last year, only this time he got a win.
At the same time the Vulcans were winning their opener at Wong Stadium, across the ocean in Northern California, the women’s basketball team, fraught with injuries all season, ended on a sour note, losing to Dominican, its third straight defeat to close the schedule, the sixth loss in the last nine games, pretty much the opposite of how you hope to see a team finish.
A little later, the baseball team was being handcuffed by a soft-tossing lefty from HPU at the same time Parker Farris was closing out his two-year UHH career with a school- and personal-record 47 points as coach GE Coleman’s team won two of its last three.
Both basketball programs at Hawaii Hilo took a step back this season, the women going from 10-15 and 10-10 in conference play last year to 8-15 and 8-12 this time around. The men’s team was 9-15 and 9-11 a year ago, but 10-16 and 8-12 this season.
Winning and losing matters and naturally, we all want to see our teams win more than they lose, but whether it’s my Raiders or UH-Manoa with a promising start in football for a new coach in 2016, it’s not realistic to separate out any one season and pass judgment for the future.
We’re here for the long haul, we won’t turn away because there might have been a backward step, some erosion here or there. At UH-Hilo, we realize the heavy burden of crushing travel costs and limited finances, we understand these teams need to get by day-to-day on what amounts to guerrilla warfare.
All out battles in the open against the heavily financed schools will never be a winning proposition for UHH, so we watch for little changes, small moments that portend a brighter day, like Vega delivered Saturday.
We understand the challenge, we look for what they do, not so much for what they say, and we always feel invigorated by the churn from one season to the next, the ritual and renewal.
It’s why we keep watching and why we keep our hopes up for our teams; it’s what we do.
