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Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Saturday, April 8, 2000

Three cheers
to the ’Bows, and
Jack, too

YOU'VE heard that expression, "No cheering in the press box." It's also the title of sports anthology by Jerome Holtzman of the Chicago Tribune.

After all, sportswriters are supposed to remain neutral when covering events. Especially when sitting in the press box.

The NCAA mandates it for all of the sports it governs, most notably making a point of it in college football.

That's why at all Rainbow football games, the press booth announcer at Aloha Stadium routinely reminds the media about no cheering in the press box as he also gives the temperature and the weather report just before kickoff time.

Pardon me if I digress here a moment.

In Hawaii, when the Rainbows kick off (when Bob Wagner was coaching) or receive (when June Jones is coaching) after winning the coin toss, the temperature is always around 76 degrees and it's always partly cloudy with mauka showers occasionally drifting makai.

So I don't know why they bother with the weather report.

It's the same with the television weather reports you hear on every station during the six and 10 o'clock news.

Isn't it always partly cloudy or partly sunny with mauka showers occasionally drifting makai? And, yet, an inordinate amount of time is spent, wasted really, on weather when more minutes could be devoted to something more important. Say, like sports.

And if the weather is really bad, it tops the news anyway. So why bother?

ANYWAY, back to no cheering in the press box.

Admittedly, it's tough for me as a University of Hawaii alumnus to keep quiet in the press box, especially now that the Rainbows appear to be back in the football spotlight.

So I had to chortle quietly, laughing and cheering on the inside following the Jeep Oahu Bowl victory over Oregon State to cap a 9-4 season.

Oh, it was so easy not having to cheer during the dreary three years when the 'Bows were almost winless and practically scoreless under Jones' predecessor, Fred vonAppen.

But now is the time of the year when I can cheer, or root against a team, because I'm nowhere near a press box or a press table.

So, at the moment, here are some of the things I'm cheering for - and rooting against - until the 'Bows kick off their 2000 season against Portland State:

That the New York Mets lose every game until they call up Benny Agbayani.
That the Boston Red Sox can win a game without Pedro Martinez on the mound
That the Texas Longhorns have a losing football season this fall.
Ditto for BYU. In every sport, not just football.
That North Carolina State's football team sets all kinds of school offensive records under new offensive coordinator Norm Chow.
That Les Murakami's baseball 'Bows win the WAC championship and make it to the NCAAs this season.
That Cincinnati's Ken Griffey beats out Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire for the 2000 home run crown.
That major baseball and the NBA ban androstenedione, the testosterone-boosting supplement used by McGwire.
That McGwire's home run record has an asterisk.
And, finally, that Jack Nicklaus earns his seventh green jacket by winning the Masters tomorrow. The oldest to win it at 46 in 1986, Nicklaus, who missed playing last year because of hip replacement surgery, can set a record that may never be broken if he wins it at age 60.

You couldn't blame anyone cheering for that. Even those in the press box.

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Bill Kwon has been writing about
sports for the Star-Bulletin since 1959.