Not backed with the financial capacity to buy everyone appropriate holiday gifts, the fall back position is to send wishes, instead. They come wrapped in more good wishes for the days ahead. In no order of importance, here’s wishing:
• A ban existed on these over-hyped, largely meaningless star system rankings for high school football players. In all the years you followed college football, have you ever heard a coach say he based his recruiting on the 5-star system? College coaches know where to go to find recruits, they have territories they cover, they make relationships with high school coaches, they watch videos, they talk to coaches of the player’s opponents and determine how the player may or may not fit into their squads. The star system benefits local fans who make money selling their rankings to other local fans who want to think they are purchasing inside information on recruiting. Don’t buy the hype, it’s a con game.
• It didn’t feel so much like Puna, in particular, Pahoa, is so often overlooked. This is the second consecutive season Pahoa High School has played all its boys and girls basketball games away from home because it takes years for the county and state to restore the school’s gymnasium to the shape it was intended when originally constructed.
In a national perspective, it’s the most populous, most financially sound states and cities that get the majority of attention from the federal government, and that is understandable, but what isn’t reasonable or fair is that the poorest communities don’t get the attention they deserve. This isn’t an attack on the county or the state, just an observation that it feels unlikely the larger public schools on the Big Island have to wait as long as Pahoa when help is needed.
• Puna did more for itself, which might sound in conflict with the previous wish, but this is meant to encourage folks in the district to take advantage of potential areas of growth in athletics, such as cycling and long distance runs that could generate interest, bring in some revenue and feed some more traffic to local businesses.
Cycling on the Big Island is mostly confined to the Kona side, and good for them to provide the competitions, but there’s a lot of land in lower Puna that is less commercialized than most areas and therefore more available for cycling and running. Cycling time trials and races would bring in a crowd and more 5Ks, or, better yet, 10Ks, half-marathons and marathons could help revitalize areas still trying to recover from the Kilauea outbreaks.
Roads are coming back, how about using them to attract folks from other parts of the Big Island as some of these events would do?
• We could spark a little sense of creativity into the athletic department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, which people of a certain age will tell you used to know how to entertain crowds.
Fans used to line up to get into The Civic and, yes, that was back in the era when the men’s basketball team was winning, but it wasn’t just the final score that often let crowds leave with smiles on their faces.
They used to have a Vulcan Band, halftime entertainment that came cheap, like a demonstration from a local gymnastics club, there were a couple fans who would run out on the court when a timeout was called and one of would pound a drum while the other went through wild martial arts contortions.
There was always something going on to entertain the crowd, but recently, nobody at the school seems interested.
It can’t be that difficult to make the effort. Guaranteed there are an abundance of musicians here in their own groups, or those looking to join a group that would call itself the Vulcan Halftime Band for the occasion.
Think there might be a hula dance group somewhere that would appreciate performing? High school bands might jump at the opportunity to play before the game and at halftime. Does anyone juggle? Where are those gymnasts? There’s no lack of groups on the Hilo side who would appreciate the opportunity to put on a show and maybe attract some interest in their club.
Let’s offer the school some help. Do you have a groups that would like to perform? Call the athletic department and let them know. Are you in a band and would like to set up on the stage and make some joyful noise? Give them a call and offer to help, they could use some, and after all, it is the season to give and be merry.
• For better calendars. That is, Big Island running calendars. In 2019, there were five marathons here, two of them on back-to-back Sundays.
How is this sensible? There are 52 weeks in a year, but 40 percent of the marathons are contested within seven days of each other?
Understand, there are a variety of groups sponsoring these long distance runs, but in the interest of encouraging turnout, bringing more people into more events, two marathons this close together probably isn’t going to generate much enthusiasm for anyone other than the hard core. If you’ve run 25 or more, you might take the challenge, but for those just getting started in marathons, squeezing them this close together is probably a good way to diminish the field in each race.
We should do better.
• The move by the Oahu Interscholastic Association toward self-government from the Department of Education, expected to be followed in lock step by the BIIF and similar high school oversight organizations on Kauai and Maui, maintains sensible guard rails on its governance.
The idea of freedom from burdensome governmental procedures is understandable, but then what?
The proposal would mean, among other things, that the new organization will raise money for salaries and operating expenses, which has the potential to lead to awkward coalitions.
If it’s your kid, do you care where the money comes from? How about if it’s business connected to a political base that wants to change how things are run?
How about if the money comes from groups that aren’t fully behind Title IX regulations?
What if it gets big money from groups that don’t want insurance to pay as much indemnity, that believes parents should pay more of the load?
Can we assume the new businesses that will be asked to underwrite high school athletics aren’t interested in what is done with the money, that they will simply give the cash and walk away, asking for nothing?
This isn’t saying any of that should be anticipated, it’s just a reminder that when new money comes in to any organization that has been funded in a certain way for decades, unintended consequences can happen.
Be careful out there and enjoy the holidays.
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