Sidelines Kalani Simpson

---

Alabama could be 'Tarzan' hot

WHENEVER talk turns to how hot it is going to be Sept. 2 when Hawaii opens up at Bryant-Denny Stadium at Alabama, my mind always wanders to the lines the great Neil Simon gave us in "Biloxi Blues."

In the movie, it's Matthew Broderick's voice:

"Man it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot."

It is going to be that kind of hot.

I don't think most of us can comprehend this kind of hot.

Oh, yes, we say, Hawaii has a strong sun, and those mainland Midwest teams always melt in our humidity in November and December at Aloha Stadium.

So we think it might be something like that, but, you know, only in reverse.

But as Jim Mora once said, we JUST ... DON'T ... KNOW.

On the mainland in the summertime (and sometimes into September) opening the door to go outside can feel like getting punched in the face. The humidity is so thick it can be harder to breathe.

How to overcome it? Well, all the extra running UH will do won't hurt.

But the best way is usually to be the better team.

» Shane Komine was one of the great college pitchers of all time. His role in turning a ho-hum program into a national power can't be overstated. But still, I wasn't sure that he would make it all the way to the big leagues. Congratulations to him. It's a heck of a story. And it hasn't stopped yet.

» Now it's official: Lance Armstrong is the only guy in the recent history of the Tour de France to NOT have been on drugs. Ahem.

» Tala Esera is one of four seniors on the cover of the new UH football media guide. He deserves it. He could be the team's most underrated player, because he's one of the best.

» One more thing from the 1988 Hawaii-Iowa game: It's amazing how many future head coaches were involved in that game -- Bill Snyder, Dan McCarney, Mike Stoops (after years as an Iowa grad assistant and volunteer assistant Bob Stoops had finally taken his first full-time job, at Kent State, that season), Kirk Ferentz, Paul Johnson, and of course, David Tanuvasa and David Maeva. (And eventually probably Ken Niumatalolo and Mark Stoops, too.)

» The Stoops brothers. They were like the Kafentzises of Iowa.

» It turns out that while all his contemporaries are busy drawing up game plans and looking at film, that crazy "character" of a coach, Mike Leach, spends his summers in California and Hawaii trying to learn how to surf. For real.

Now this was a story. I contacted Texas Tech.

"Coach Leach left Hawaii yesterday."

Just my luck.