Thursday, December 2, 1999

Aloha, Oahu Bowls
popular tickets

About 9,000 seats remain
for the Christmas Day
football doubleheader

By Paul Arnett
Star-Bulletin

These days, Arizona State and Wake Forest are clamoring for tickets to the upcoming Christmas Day doubleheader at a rate close to that of Hawaii fans.

Bowl Games Hawaii chief executive officer Lenny Klompus confirmed there were about 9,000 seats still available for the Aloha and Oahu bowls.

Unlike most postseason games where schools are required to buy a minimum of 10,000 tickets, Klompus waived that arrangement for this year's games.

"We did it partly to protect Hawaii fans and the tickets available to them," Klompus said. "NCAA rules require us to give a minimum of 1,000 quality seats to each of the four schools."

JEEP ALOHA AND OAHU BOWLS When: December 25 Aloha Bowl: Wake Forest vs, Arizona State, 10:30 a.m. Oahu Bowl: Hawaii vs. Oregon State, 3:30 p.m. Where: Aloha Stadium Tickets: $45 sideline-orange end zone, $30 and $20 end zone. Good for both games. Call 947-4141, 486-9300 Tickets online: at http://www.alohagames.com Parking: Lot opens at 7:30 a.m.

Klompus said 16,000 tickets were renewed by fans who buy seats every year. Oregon State has sold about 3,500 seats, Arizona State is around 2,500 and Wake Forest asked for approximately 1,500.

That left about 26,500 for local fans, who can by tickets at the Aloha Stadium ticket office, ETM machines located in Safeway stores throughout the islands, Ticket Plus and at the Bowl Games Hawaii office.

"Arizona State requested another 660 tickets and Wake Forest originally only wanted 500, but they asked for another 1,000 and have sold about 700 of those," Klompus said. "We want people to come early and stay late. I think Hawaii fans who want to tailgate know they have to come early because parking at the stadium is limited."

Although Hawaii will be the visiting team, Klompus has cleared it with Oregon State officials for the Rainbows to not only be in their regular locker, but allow them to wear the home colors of green and white.

"UH wanted us to ask Oregon State and they said it was OK," Klompus said.

"Dennis Erickson said, 'Yeah, it's all right. Let them wear what they want to.' They were nice about it."

Arizona State and Wake Forest is a more likely match in basketball than football. The Sun Devils advanced to the Aloha Bowl by beating the rival Arizona Wildcats.

Wake Forest appeared to be in trouble after losing two weeks ago to Duke. But the Demon Deacons upset Georgia Tech and are looking forward to playing the Sun Devils on Christmas Day.

"ABC loves it because of all those television sets down South," Klompus said. "And we like it because we have two teams who had to fight to get here and are excited about being in a bowl game.

"That's why we like the Oregon State game with Hawaii. None of these four teams were in bowl games last year, so they're hungry to show what they can do on a football field."

The last time Oregon and Oregon State were in a bowl game the same season was 1948. That year, the Beavers came out here to play the Rainbows in the Pineapple Bowl, a game they won, 47-27.

Kickoff for the Aloha Bowl is 10:30 a.m. Arizona State will be without quarterback Ryan Kealey who sprained his knee in the win over Arizona. It was the fifth knee injury of his career.

Kickoff for the Oahu Bowl is 3:30 p.m. It's the first postseason appearance for Oregon State since the 1965 Rose Bowl and the first winning season since 1970.