HAVE you considered what it's going to be like around here when the University of Arizona brings the media circus to town? Opener will be
a reminder of
UH glory daysAt this moment, sports editors, television producers and radio talk-show geeks are trying to be right about all the angles.
They want to know if former Hawaii head coach Bob Wagner plans to corner Hugh Yoshida and teach him the meaning of the word loyalty.
They're telling their reporters to ask Dick Tomey if being the athletic director at UH holds any special appeal should this be his last season at Arizona.
Those who love Xs and Os can't wait to interview Arizona defensive coordinator Rich Ellerson and have him tell the story of how he designed the famous Arizona Desert Storm defense during his coaching days at Hawaii.
Coach Ellerson has always been an excitable boy, so if you really want to get a rise out of him, remind him that the Desert Storm design was partly responsible for the Rainbows finishing last in the nation in pass defense in 1991.
That should make for good television or talk radio. I'll try to steer clear of any such controversies, instead concentrating on stories about what Hawaii graduate assistant Brent Brennan thinks about his brother playing for Arizona.
OF course, if I wanted to be a hard-hitting journalist, I could always get Wagner and Fred vonAppen to meet unwittingly for lunch, sort of a Jerry Springer spritzer.
"Hey Bob, nice to see you pal," vonAppen would surely say. "I've been wanting to thank you for leaving the team in such fine academic shape. I don't know what was lower, the team GPA or the attendance figures.
"And by the way, why again did Hugh fire you?"
Of course, Wagner would answer by saying how fragile this business is, and tell vonAppen that a poor record, the spread option and fewer fans in the seats led to his demise.
"And by the way, Duane Akina said he wanted to meet me for lunch. But don't worry about it, Fred, he doesn't harbor any bad feelings about you beating him out for the job. I think he breathes a big sigh of relief every day."
Oh, if life were only like this.
Instead, I'm afraid we're going to be inundated with a horde of media stories about what it's like to be back in Hawaii and playing the Rainbows. Big yawn.
"Coach Tomey, here you are returning to paradise with so many six degrees of separation you might be able to come full circle. In 10 seconds, or 25 words or less, how do you feel?"
I might ask Coach Wagner if he uses a boat as a recruiting tool in Tucson, Ariz. Or I might take Coach Ellerson aside and ask, "Isn't your wife a doctor yet? And if she is, I thought you were going to retire?"
I'M fresh out of anecdotes for Arizona assistant Dino Babers, who played for Tomey at UH in the early 1980s. But I did make former UH beat writer Dick Couch's day by telling him that Babers is 37 years old.
The sobering reality about the homecoming hoopla is that the Arizona coaches with Hawaii ties might not recognize the old girl.
When they were here, Aloha Stadium was the place to be, not just the home of a flea market. They're going to be surprised at all those empty seats staring back at them for the Sept. 3 game.
And they'll probably feel a touch of sadness, especially Tomey and Wagner. They are the two most responsible for taking the Rainbows from relative obscurity to respectability.
After nearly three years of endless battles and unrequited frustrations here, vonAppen can certainly appreciate that.
He also can hope for a return to those Saturday nights gone by. And what better way to do that than by beating those same men responsible for those better days.
Paul Arnett has been covering sports
for the Star-Bulletin since 1990.