EAST is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. West best for UH in
WAC alignmentIt's quite all right with the University of Hawaii if it's in the West and the Wyoming and Colorado State football teams are in the East in a realignment recommended by Western Athletic Conference officials. The league presidents still need to approve the plan to form two eight-team divisions beginning with the 2000-2001 season.
The 16-team WAC which encompasses nine states and five different time zones basically moved to form two separate leagues by adopting permanent East and West divisions for football and men's and women's basketball.
Hawaii will be in the West along with BYU, Utah, Air Force, San Jose State, San Diego State, UNLV and Fresno State. Making up the WAC East will be Colorado State, Wyoming, New Mexico, UTEP, Tulsa, Rice, SMU and TCU.
UH athletics director Hugh Yoshida is all in favor of the new alignment. It was definitely better than a proposed North-South proposal that grouped the Rainbows with the Texas schools. Thankfully, it never got off the ground.
Needless to say, nobody came away happy with the new alignment. If anything, the plan was a compromise, according to WAC commissioner Karl Benson.
"In any of the divisional alignments considered, one or more of the institutions may be disadvantaged, but we believe it is in the conference's best long-term interest," he said.
"Permanent divisions help eliminate fan confusion created by the quadrant set-up and will reduce travel costs for member institutions."
WYOMING, Colorado State and Air Force reportedly voted against the plan, which isn't surprising, considering they're natural geographic rivals.
Air Force and Colorado State won't be playing each other even though they're only 100 miles apart. That prompted Falcons coach Fisher DeBerry to call the move "ludicrous." CSU coach Sonny Lubick will ask his president to vote against the plan.
For Hawaii football fans, though, it might be a good thing not having to play Wyoming and Colorado State anymore. In the past three seasons, the Rainbows lost by a combined score of 153-12 to the Cowboys and 113-16 to the Rams.
More important, the Rainbows won't have to take that long journey into night and the next day to Laramie anymore.
Both UH basketball coaches, Riley Wallace of the men's team, and the Wahine's Vince Goo, are elated about the new alignment. And not only because it'll save each around $40,000 in travel.
"That's the way I wanted it," said Wallace. "The fans and even the media across the nation were getting confused because of the quadrant system. And draw-wise, it's good for us."
IT'S especially great to renew basketball rivalry with BYU, according to Wallace.
"BYU's very big for us. We wouldn't have played them in the last two years if we hadn't invited them to the Rainbow Classic." And BYU has to pair up with Utah, another UH opponent with a lot of local ties.
"San Jose State, Fresno State and San Diego State make sense with us," Wallace added. "And UNLV with 50,000 Hawaiians living in Vegas is a good rival for us. The only odd one is Air Force, but with the strong military presence in Hawaii, it's also good for us."
"Playing the same teams every year will build up our fan interest," added Goo. "And it'll make traveling a lot easier. Now we can get there the same day."
Rainbow football coach Fred vonAppen didn't care to express an opinion about the new alignment.
"They've done it and I didn't have a thing to do with it," he said. "We'll play wherever they line us up."