NOTHING against the football Rainbows and their losing ways, but the subject is basketball. Right in the middle of the baseball playoffs. Shaq’s out, but ‘Helicopter’
will airlift our spiritsBasketball's the topic because of the NBA lockout. Its impact has even reached these shores.
It meant the cancellation of the Los Angeles Lakers' training camp and their two preseason games against the Golden State Warriors at the Stan Sheriff Center in mid-October.
Not having the Lakers -- especially Shaquille O'Neal -- in town for a week will hurt the local economy. It also will cost the Rainbow basketball program.
Not monetarily, since the Lakers paid only $5,000 plus expenses for each game when they were last here in 1996. But having the Lakers on campus is worth much in terms of public relations and image for Hawaii, according to athletic director Hugh Yoshida and basketball coach Riley Wallace.
"Just having the presence of the Lakers on our campus, using the Stan Sheriff Center, is something," Yoshida said.
"It always helps us. It draws attention to the start of basketball," Wallace said. "And it's good for recruiting, too. We mention to all our recruits that this is where the Lakers play."
NOT this year because of the NBA lockout, which could threaten the entire 1998-99 season, not just preseason, according to league owners.
Yoshida said that the Lakers have expressed an interest in returning in 2000.
Now that the Lakers aren't coming, Wallace changed his plans for this year's Midnight Ohana, which kicks off the first day of practice for his basketball team.
Wallace considered holding it at Aloha Stadium right after the BYU-Hawaii football game.
The highlight was to have been 6-foot-8 Erin "Helicopter" Galloway being airlifted into the stadium by helicopter. What else?
But now, Midnight Ohana, which also will feature Vince Goo's Wahine team, will be at the UH arena.
"We still might have Galloway land in a helicopter outside the arena," Wallace said.
What did Galloway have to say about it?
"I had to talk him into it," Wallace said. "As high as he jumps, he's scared of heights."
Galloway stole the show at last year's Midnight Ohana before a standing-room-only crowd at the 10,225-seat arena, winning the slam-dunk title from A.C. Carter, who had won it the year before.
According to Wallace, the Rainbow to watch this year is Geremy Robinson, a 6-4 junior college transfer from Mississippi, whose 43-inch vertical leap is an inch better than Galloway's.
THE Midnight Ohana has been a resounding success since it moved from old Klum Gym, where it averaged 1,700 for the first seven years. It has been in the arena the last four years.
It's the local version of Midnight Madness, conceived by Lefty Driesell when he was at Maryland in the 1970s. Kansas was the first to make a big deal out of it by filling its 16,300-seat Allen Field House.
Now, more than one-third of the more 300 Division I schools that play basketball stage a version of Midnight Madness.
This year's Midnight Ohana, scheduled for the midnight before the BYU-UH football game Oct. 17, will be a retro one, according to Wallace, who plans to invite all former Rainbow players and coaches.
That will include former coach Ah Chew Goo, and Bobby Kau and other players up through the Fabulous Five. The program also will include former Wahine players.
It should be quite a night -- and morning after.