Wednesday, August 5, 1998
Deal with Starter
has 'Bows
looking smart
Football team gets
By Paul Arnett
sharp, new uniforms
and saves a bundle
Star-BulletinUniversity of Hawaii assistant coach Tim Green unveiled the new Rainbows uniform at a fund-raiser at Murphy's Bar and Grill recently.
On the dark green home jerseys, the word Hawaii will appear in white lettering and black trim above the numbers. On the white road jerseys, the letters and numbers will be dark green with black trim. Both were produced by the Starter Corp.
"They are really sharp," UH head coach Fred vonAppen said. "The players are real happy with them. As for me, I'm more concerned with how we play than what we look like while playing, but this is a very professional-looking jersey."
There had been some talk of doing away with the traditional Rainbows logo on the helmet in favor of a block U and H, similar to the University of Houston logo, but president Kenneth Mortimer squashed that idea.
"It was a presidential mandate that we supported," vonAppen said. "We'll keep the Rainbows logo on the helmet and also have a smaller version of it on the pants, just above the left thigh pad."
UH equipment manager Al Ginoza said the players' names would be above the numbers on the back of the jerseys. Last spring, administrators had talked about eliminating the names to save money.
"But we decided against it," Ginoza said. "The people at Starter gave us a really good deal on the jerseys. The contract with Starter was a university-wide effort."
Starter normally charges $130 for the pants and $130 for the jerseys. But in the first-year of the new contract, Starter took $30 off the pants and jerseys.
"In addition to the discounted price, they also bought the away uniforms and we bought the home ones," vonAppen said. "That saved us about $50,000, which is a good amount of money in these austere times, and something we appreciate."
VonAppen also is in the final year of a $75,000 deal with Nike that provides shoes, T-shirts, socks, towels, wristbands and gloves.
"These kinds of deals are necessary when you're dealing with the prohibitive costs of outfitting a football team," vonAppen said.
In other UH news, punter Chad Shrout was one of six Western Athletic Conference standouts picked as preseason players of the year. Shrout was the special teams selection in the Pacific Division. Air Force defensive back Tim Curry was the Mountain Division choice.
Shrout led the WAC in punting last season with a school-record 46.1-yard average. In 1997, Curry had five interceptions and blocked five kicks.
The offensive players were New Mexico quarterback Graham Leigh in the Pacific Division and Colorado State running back Damon Washington in the Mountain Division.
Last season, Leigh passed for 2,318 yards and rushed for 528 to lead the Lobos to the WAC championship game and a berth in the Insight.com Bowl. Washington is coming off back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons.
Defensive honors went to San Diego State's Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila in the Pacific Division and Colorado State linebacker Nate Kvamme in the Mountain Division. Gbaja-Biamila led the WAC in quarterback sacks last season with 12 for 95 yards. Kvamme led CSU in tackles last year with 109.
