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Sports Watch
THE biggest question in local sports has yet to be asked, so forget about it even being answered: Will Les Murakami be fired? UH baseball program
at crossroadsIt's a touchy subject, almost a no-no.
For, after all, Murakami is an institution and institutions don't get fired. He's an icon, someone named to the American Baseball Coaches Association's Hall of Fame.
He built the UH baseball program from scratch -- starting with a hardscrabble playing field to a state-of-the-art baseball stadium, which one day will be named in his honor.
His Rainbow teams have won more than a thousand games, six WAC championships and made 11 NCAA appearances, including the College World Series finals in 1980.
But there has been a growing undercurrent of discontent with a continually disappointing University of Hawaii baseball program.
Once again, the baseball 'Bows won't make it to the NCAA postseason regionals. Even with a 64-team field.
They're mathematically eliminated from the Western Athletic Conference race and have six games remaining in which to play for pride and not much else against UH-Hilo.
WELL, maybe a winning record, although a sweep against the Vulcans would only give the Rainbows a mediocre 29-27 record.
What's worse is that fans have been staying away in droves even when the Rainbows were winning a month ago. This was a season that Murakami had hoped to turn things around for his beleaguered baseball program.
Once a money-maker, the UH baseball program has been steadily losing money. It's projected to lose some $360,000 this season.
It hasn't shown a profit, however small, since 1994. Instead, it has been a million-dollar drain on an already hard-pressed athletic budget with little results to show for it on the baseball field.
The Rainbows -- and the crowds -- haven't made a big comeback, putting a lot of pressure on UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida, who may have to make a decision soon about Murakami's future.
Can Yoshida afford another year of status quo for the baseball program?
Murakami's in his 30th year as head coach, but his contract, which ends June 30, hasn't been extended the past two years. So, as far as Yoshida is concerned, will he or won't he fire Murakami?
YOSHIDA fired football coach Bob Wagner for far less reason, according to some people. And Wags had been with the UH football program for 20 years, the last nine as head coach. Fred vonAppen's firing was a no-brainer.
Murakami, however, is a far different matter. The icon factor and all.
Yoshida says he has been asked often recently about what he plans to do about ending the baseball program's tailspin.
He says he has never talked to the media before making any coaching decision, even when it came to Wagner and vonAppen, and isn't going to start now.
"I'll never say anything prior to making a decision. I never have and I never will," Yoshida said.
"We've got to do right for the man. Or, for that matter, any coach in our program. It's an internal issue. It's not a public issue until we make a decision."
If anything, Yoshida says, he will not even start to think about Murakami's contract until after the Rainbows' season is completed.
As for Murakami, he only says he's not a quitter and had absolutely no intention of resigning. They'd have to fire him first.