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Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Thursday, October 12, 2000

UH, SMU have
a lot in common

GIMME a 'W.' And I don't mean Warriors. I mean a win, as in, a win is a win is a win.

The University of Hawaii football team hasn't chalked up a 'W' so far this season. The H-Men are 0-4 with eight to go.

So they need a victory badly. They have a chance to break through against Southern Methodist Saturday.

UH and SMU -- two struggling teams -- are on a collision course for last place in the Western Athletic Conference.

They also have a lot in common, besides their losing records.

For example:

"We have way too many turnovers and we're not getting anything ourselves."

"The first thing we've got to do is stop beating ourselves. That's the first step in winning a football game."

"We're not good enough to make turnovers and beat people."

"We have a lot of concerns."

"I'm sure they're hungry for a win like we are."

June Jones?

No, SMU coach Mike Cavan.

But the quotes could just have easily been attributed to Jones. His H-Men are undergoing the same problems.

And, as Jones said, "Until you get a win, you don't feel good about yourselves."

Cavan could have said that as well, although his Mustangs do have a 'W,' beating Kansas in their opener before losing five in a row.

But unlike SMU, UH's woes have been compounded by a propensity for committing penalties. Hawaii is the WAC's most penalized team with 10 a game for an 86-yard average.

Cavan is changing quarterbacks to shake up his offense, even though Josh McCown leads the WAC in passing.

"When you change quarterbacks, it seems a big deal. It is. That's where it all starts," Cavan said.

Jones has already done that in Game Three with freshman Timmy Chang, who threw for three TDs against TCU after making his first collegiate start the week before against Tulsa.

Chang has caught Cavan's attention.

"You knew sooner or later that June will find someone to run his offense. That's what he has done."

BOOSTER SHOT: The timing couldn't have been better. With the UH men's basketball team making its debut in the Midnight Ohana at 12:01 Saturday morning, Riley Wallace's program has already scored on a booster shot.

Carolyn Berry put up the first shot with a challenge to match it by donating the first $300,000 toward a $1 million endowment fund for athletic scholarship for Rainbow basketball players.

"It took a special person to get it started, and she's a special person," Wallace said.

Berry and her late husband Bob became Rainbow basketball fans when they moved here in 1989, the year their son, David, entered UH.

Growing up as basketball fans in West Virginia, they moved to Michigan and became Detroit Piston fans.

"He was going through a basketball withdrawal, so I dragged him to UH games," Berry said.

Before her husband died several years ago, he talked about doing something for the UH basketball program. So she's carrying out his wishes by establishing the endowment fund in his name along with that of her father's.

A patron of the Honolulu Symphony, Berry sees to it that Wallace attends all of the symphony's social functions.

In a tuxedo.

"I have to keep renting a tux," Wallace said.

"Maybe we can set up a tuxedo endowment fund for him," Berry said.