IT'S a shame to see that St. Louis has once again failed to line up a national power in prep football for a preseason game. St. Louis going a long way
to play a pair of mediocre teamsAfter so many years of dominance in Hawaii and with the promise of continued dominance, we were hoping to see the Crusaders finally seek some validation in the eyes of the mainland.
They need no validation here. No local prep football program has ever done what this one has done.
But raising money to travel to play also-ran prep football programs like Beverly Hills High of California on Maui and Green Valley High in Las Vegas doesn't make much sense.
"Green Valley is a baseball school," said Dave Krider of USA Today's "Super 25" poll.
"We rank Nevada football teams sometimes in the region's top 10 but not in the top 25 in the nation."
St. Louis coach Cal Lee was quoted in a story by Bill Kwon last week as saying, "This is a chance for our team to get more national exposure."
So, I asked the poll maker, Krider, if playing Green Valley will further St. Louis' national recognition.
"Not that I know of," said Krider. "Not unless they (Green Valley) have something I don't know about."
And as for Beverly Hills High?
"They've never been ranked in any sport I can think of," said Krider.
EVERY year, the St. Louis boosters expect to see their team in the national polls, and they have not been disappointed this decade.
But St. Louis enters next season without the impressive win streak it lost last year, and without any recent wins against nationally recognized teams.
Doug Huff of the National Prep Football Poll elevated the team to the No. 4 spot in the country last fall after St. Louis alumni paid his way out here to watch a preseason game with Waianae.
But USA Today didn't rank St. Louis any higher than No. 19, and kicked the Crusaders out of the poll after they lost to Kamehameha.
Even the Huff poll dropped St. Louis after that loss.
It's not hard to understand why.
The Crusaders have not even played a mainland program since the Shawn Akina Classic bowed out in 1995. The only time they truly impressed Krider was in 1991, when they thrashed then-No. 7 Bakersfield of California, 30-13, in the Akina Classic.
In 1996, when St. Louis pulled out of, and basically pulled the plug on, the Akina Classic, a top-10 Capistrano Valley (Calif.) team, which had fund-raised to play in the classic, came out anyway. Bizarrely, the team wound up playing Nanakuli.
Somehow, St. Louis missed a golden opportunity to score a meaningful victory that year right here on Oahu.
SURE Huff started out by saying St. Louis could hold its own with some of the best teams in the nation. But he also meant that he wants to see St. Louis put its reputation on the line some day against the nation's best.
There are 25 teams in the USA Today poll and the National Prep Football Poll (each has some teams the other doesn't rank), so there should be some coach out there willing to host or travel to play a team that has won the last 12 Oahu Prep Bowls.
If St. Louis is going to put on a major fundraising drive to send the football team on two costly trips this summer, it ought to accomplish something more for the program than just frequent flyer miles.