I didn't need a three-man committee to select University of Texas running back Ricky Williams for the Heisman Trophy. Heisman vote a no-brainer?
Not for meBut I do wish somebody had reminded me earlier this week that the ballot was due today.
"Haven't you sent that thing in yet?" my wife asked me Tuesday morning, knowing full well I hadn't. "I can't believe the Downtown Athletic Club would have somebody like you as a member."
I snatched the ballot off the dinner table and headed down the hill to my friendly neighborhood post office in Kaaawa, where I learned if you have to absolutely, positively send something overnight, you can't do it from there.
It might get to New York by Friday, maybe even Saturday, I was told of this strange next-day delivery system. Too late to be accounted for by some faceless firm in New York City.
I was trying to think how I was going to explain this memory lapse to the Heisman Trophy people, who had entrusted Hawaii's first vote to me, when I came up with a plan.
What if I sent it from the airport? The postmaster smiled at me as if I had deciphered the secret code of the zip. Get it there by 6 p.m., he said, and it should be in the Big Apple on Thursday.
AS I raced along Kamehameha Highway, doing all of 30 in a 35, I looked at the three names I had filled in on the ballot, and began to wonder if my candidates were in the proper order.
Williams was my first choice, Kansas State quarterback Michael Bishop was second and UCLA quarterback Cade McNown was a close third.
Well, OK, Williams is a sure thing, at least. He rushed for an NCAA record 6,279 yards. All right, so he began his Division I career in Hawaii four years ago by dropping a pitch from quarterback James Brown.
That's not reason enough to become the only voter in America to sing "The Eyes of Texas" off-key. Stop doing this to yourself. Williams is first, Bishop is second and McNown is third.
Now, hold on a minute. Bishop and McNown posted some pretty heady numbers of their own. These two quarterbacks combined to pass for a million yards and 100,000 touchdowns.
One of them is deserving of the trophy. But which one?
I pondered this problem as I sped through the H-3 tunnel, finally settling on Bishop as I broke on through to the other side. I wasn't sure why. I guess any player, who has a gag order put on him by an athletic department is fine by me.
BUT wait a second, will you? Let's don't forget about McNown. He played in Terry Donahue's last game as a UCLA head coach. He threw three touchdowns passes in that Aloha Bowl loss to Kansas in 1995, but completed only 13 of 34 passes for a paltry 121 yards.
I was running out of time as H-3 melted into H-1. Fortunately, I only had a crayon in the car, or I might have scratched off Williams' name in a fit of panic.
Easing over into the exit lane at the airport, I stuffed my ballot into the $10.75 envelope, and in the process, missed the poorly marked sign for the post office.
It forced me into a holding pattern as I circled around and around the airport terminal, wondering if I would ever get there from here.
Eventually, I saw the sign on the road that heads out to the old Neighbor Island terminal. As I spotted the mailbox, I fought the urge to tear open the envelope and change my vote to Bishop.
I even kept opening and closing the little door, just to make sure my ballot had dropped in with the other overnighter envelopes.
My vote for Williams traveled 5,000 miles before arriving in New York yesterday. I almost asked the nameless accountant if I still had time to change my mind.
Some part of me screamed, "Vote for McNown before it's too late," but I just hung up the phone instead, comfortable in the knowledge that at least the vote was mine, and mine alone.
Paul Arnett has been covering sports
for the Star-Bulletin since 1990.