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Sports Watch
THEY say you can't judge a book by its cover. Maybe. But when it comes to the 2000 University of Hawaii football media guide, the front cover with the new "H" logo isn't the only thing that turns me off. Media guide
disregards UH
historyAs a UH alumnus and someone who followed the football Rainbows since 1946, I was disappointed with the content of the new media guide as well.
I'm sure others are equally upset by the disregard of Hawaii's football tradition.
I'm not just talking about the football team's new nickname.
OK, so it's the end of the Rainbows in football. I don't like it, but I can live with that.
What's absurd with the new media guide, though, is the omission of all football results prior to 1966, even though UH first began play in 1909.
Think about it for a moment, sports fans.
What's the greatest upset victory in UH football history?
Unquestionably, the 6-0 victory over Nebraska in Lincoln in 1955. (The 10-7 road upset over Washington in 1973 is a close second, but no cigars).
Yet you wouldn't know it by the new media guide and won't unless you call it up on the UH athletic department's home page on the Internet. That's where all the pre-1966 results are now found.
No room for them in the 208-page 2000 media guide, you say? Well, there certainly was enough room for 14 full-page ads. You'd think some of the advertising money could have been used for an additional page or two to include the "prehistoric" results.
OK, maybe some of the scores were from games played against local senior league teams such as Moiliili A.C. and the Leialums.
Interestingly, though, if you were to look in Fresno State's media guide, the school lists results against Moiliili A.C. and the Leialums. At least Fresno State hasn't forgotten its football past.
Dropping the results prior to 1966 is an insult to all the former football Rainbows. It's an omission that should be restored in next year's media guide. Even if the school has to sell more ads.
WHAT makes the omission ironic is that members of the 1955 team will be special guests at the season opener Sept. 9 against Portland State.
One of the players is Don Botelho, who's starting his 27th season as head coach for Pac-Five of the Interscholastic League of Honolulu.
Botelho, too, was disappointed about the expunging of the scores of the games when he played for the Rainbows.
"It's part of UH football history, isn't it?" he said.
Botelho still holds the record for throwing the longest completed pass and touchdown in UH history -- a 95-yarder to Colin Chock against Willamette in 1957.
The score, by the way, if you looked it up on the Internet, was 27-0.
A little known trivia is that Botelho missed the extra point in the game against Nebraska.
"I was the reason the score was 6-0, not 7-0," he said.
Botelho remembers looking at the sports section of the Lincoln newspaper the next morning. There was a photo of him missing the conversion.
The sarcastic caption said something to the effect, "Botelho misses wide right, not because of a Nebraska rush."
"The press ridiculed the Nebraska team for losing," Botelho said.
The media guide includes his record pass completion, but it has a typo, calling him Dan in one of two references.
Nicknamed "Spud" since his elementary days, Botelho knows about typos.
Like his nickname, for instance.
"I think it should be a 't' instead of a 'p' ," he said with a laugh.
Bill Kwon has been writing about
sports for the Star-Bulletin since 1959.