’Bows get together
to air out feelings

The players-only meeting
was called to find a way to end
all the finger-pointing

By Paul Arnett
Star-Bulletin

The seniors called a team meeting yesterday that probably wouldn't have been shown on the Disney Channel, but did a lot to improve relations for the Hawaii football club.

During the waning moments of last Saturday's humiliating 63-0 loss at Colorado State, there were some heated words exchanged between offensive and defensive players on the team.

To cut off the finger-pointing before it became too rampant, the seniors decided to call a truce, close the doors and let the free flow of ideas be exchanged by the 30-odd players in the room.

"We all went in knowing that was the worst game we had played all year," fifth-year free safety Eddie Klaneski said after yesterday's rain-soaked practice. "We can play a lot better. We looked at the film and that made it all seem worse.

"So we got together, shed light on everything and talked about all the negative things. We got it all out, but there was no finger-pointing in there.

"We have to pick up on all the positives. We basically cleared the air and tried to get the love back. We don't want any more people to fall out. We have to stick it out together for it to work."

Fellow fifth-year seniors Shane Oliveira, Johnny Macon and Gary Ellerson had different takes on what was accomplished as Hawaii prepares for Saturday's home game with Fresno State.

Ellerson and Oliveira believe actions speak louder than words and said as much after practice, while Macon took a more wait-and-see approach to see what comes to fruition this weekend.

"We had the meeting, so we'll see what happens," Macon said.

"It's hard to pinpoint what's wrong because we have the athletes. And it's not like we don't have the coaches because we do.

"You look at us the first two games, and you look at us the last three, and we don't seem like the same team.

"The meeting was just right. It wasn't like we got down on each other. It was more come together and rectify it."

Oliveira and Ellerson also saw the meeting that way, but weren't too chummy about it.

"I've never been one to do a lot of talking," Ellerson said. "I'm always like, 'Man, go out and play.' Ever since I've ever played any type of sport, I believe my actions do my speaking for me. I believe people look up to that more than talking."

Oliveira agreed.

"You don't ever know how these meetings will go," Oliveira said.

"We've got to play. That's the only thing. Whatever brings Ws. You can do all the talking you want in all the meetings, but it's what you do on the football field that counts the most.

"To me, talk is cheap, even if it's positive. It's great to get everybody together, but we need to execute on the field. We need to go out and tackle, block, run."

Junior college transfer Doug Rosevold also believed the Rainbows needed to play better on the football field and everything else would take care of itself.

But he took it one step further by saying he felt the players were letting down the coaches, who were doing everything they could to make them play better.

"We've had team meetings before and a lot of us were kind of skeptical of this one," Rosevold said.

"Because a lot of times it just turns into a finger-pointing session. This time it turned into something really productive.

"We basically pointed the fingers at ourselves. It was not the coaches' fault. We feel real badly as a team at how we performed for our coaches, who've done so much for us the past two years.

"They're excellent coaches. We have no one to blame but ourselves for how poorly we played. We all know we were making errors and weren't playing hard. We're on the decline and we need to do something to help get us back on the right track."

Fellow junior college transfer Lonn Kalama certainly hopes so. He doesn't want his final year to end on a sour note.

"We just wanted to talk about some things and talk about some feelings we each have as players," Kalama said.

"We wanted to take a good look at what's been happening lately with our team.

"We wanted to discuss some possible solutions to try to turn around this team and get us going in the right direction. Obviously, no one is satisfied with what's happening. Everybody's disappointed.

"But rather than point fingers, we decided to take a hard look at ourselves and come together as a team. The meeting was to try to improve the morale of the team and, hopefully, we did that."

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