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The Way I See It
WHILE we're focusing on Super Bowl XXXIV, the National Football League is already setting up shop here for the 50th Pro Bowl. Pro Bowl, Hawaii
a perfect matchIt'll be a whiz-bang turnover from Atlanta to Honolulu and you can expect the six Rams and four Titans voted into the Pro Bowl will arrive Monday wanting nothing more than to collapse on the nearest beach.
This will be the 21st time that the game is held at Aloha Stadium and we can only hope we keep it from the clutches of Florida and California for years to come.
In all the years it's been in Honolulu, the only non-NFL city that's ever hosted it, no fewer than 49,000 tickets have been sold.
I don't know about you, but I think simple logic dictates that the Pro Bowl be played here. I really do.
Can you imagine telling the players that their Pro Bowl getaway will be in a city where they've already sweated blood during the recently completed season? Maybe even in the same stadium where that groin pull, turf toe, ankle sprain or hamstring was incurred?
Uh-uh. I think not.
Talk to the players and some will tell you they might not have bothered to suit up again if they had to play in a less enticing locale.
Certainly the AFC players have to like it here.
They've won three in a row and four of the last five games. The winner's share the past two years has been $25,000.
The series between the AFC and NFC has been going on since 1971 and the NFC still holds a 15-14 edge.
One very sad note about this Pro Bowl is the news that a man who played here nine times (1990-98) - Derrick Thomas of the Kansas City Chiefs - was paralyzed from the chest down in an accident on an icy road en route to Kansas City International Airport over the weekend.
It was such a thrill to watch Thomas execute a pass rush. His finely tuned body played one of the world's most violent games but his career came to a crashing end not on the field, but on a snowy highway.
Bizarre, isn't it?
JUNE Jones is not having any trouble keeping the local talent home this year. Hot recruit
What a difference a winning season can make.
But none of the homegrown football recruits can boast of having tested his mettle against the nation's best as a prep athlete. That will come later for those lucky enough to make it in NCAA Division I play under Jones' tutelage.
But Punahou senior Victoria Chang is already a proven commodity as a recruit.
She had to beat the nation's best to win the Foot Locker National Cross-Country Championships last month. She's also one of America's best female prep 3,000-meter runners.
Chang picked Stanford last week after receiving scholarship offers from the Cardinal, BYU, USC, UC-Berkeley, Arizona, Colorado, Washington, Rice and UCLA.
She was heavily recruited by 11 others, and received calls or letters from a total of 48.
Now that's a hot recruit.
Pat Bigold has covered sports for daily newspapers
in Hawaii and Massachusetts since 1978.
