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Sidelines
Kalani Simpson
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Rope-a-dope style helps Frazier weather the storm of outrage
MAN, I am Herman'd out. I am sick of this subject. I have schedule fatigue. I have Frazier fatigue.
Maybe that's part of the plan, for embattled Hawaii athletic director Herman Frazier. I'm starting to think he's doing the Rope-a-dope, purposefully laying low, letting everyone get his or her best shots in now. Bam, bam, bam. Meanwhile, he's just letting the storm pass. How long can an all-out assault keep up, really?
Then, later, when everyone is all punched out, he can emerge from his undisclosed location (maybe on the mainland, or possibly somewhere in the wild, mountainous border region of Pakistan) ready to make his comeback. Kind of a fresh start.
Really, how long can people keep their outrage levels this high? Eventually, people will tire, and the complaints will die down, and he'll still be the guy in charge when all this is over. It's a good plan.
Maybe. It's working with me. I am worn out.
But I don't know. There are a few guys who seem to have a lot of stamina on this subject. Bam. Bam. Bam.
And as long as there is no resolution, the topic isn't going away.
This -- the staying quiet, the letting the storm pass -- is probably the smartest thing he's done in this whole 2007 schedule saga. This is more how he should have conducted himself all along.
But eventually he's going to have to come up with something. And I wonder -- even if he comes up with a miracle -- if people will ever look at this guy the same way again.
» There was a surprising number of responses to yesterday's column about the KFVE UH sports archives. I'm not the only crazy one.
My favorite e-mail was from Anthony:
"I used to tape UH games as a kid growing up. Long before YouTube, I took these tapes and created highlight videos for extra credit in high school. My teacher was a big fan of football. However, after I left Hawaii to join the Army, my mother threw out many of my things, including baseball cards, football cards and all my tapes of UH football and other sports. I would love to get some of these games back."
That's the best part. The realization that all of those games are there. It's all there.
That's wonderful. It's like a dream come true.
These last several years there have been a few people who have convinced themselves (and tried to convince the rest of us) that all those great games weren't so great, that this stuff never happened, that we didn't really feel that way. But we did. It's all there. Anthony's mother threw the tapes out, but it was that special, we did feel that way. It's all there. And it always will be.
It makes my heart glad.