Tuesday, June 19, 2001
ILH, Damien A decision by Damien Memorial High School administrators to forfeit the Monarchs' varsity football games against St. Louis could lead to the school being excluded from Interscholastic League of Honolulu football this season.
considering
alternatives
The school's forfeits to
St. Louis may lead to
drastsic actionsBy Jason Kaneshiro jkaneshiro@starbulletin.com
and Ben Henry bhenry@starbulletin.comDamien athletic director Herb Lloyd said yesterday the possibility exists that the league's principals could vote to keep the Monarchs off the schedule when they meet tomorrow.
"They may request us not being part of the ILH football schedule," Lloyd said. "That could be an option, and at that point we'd have to deal with it."
Damien president Br. Gregory O'Donnell reiterated his intention to forfeit the games to the perennial nationally ranked Crusaders yesterday at a meeting with ILH president and Kamehameha principal Anthony Ramos and athletic directors Blane Gaison (Kamehameha), John Hom (Pac-Five) and Judy Hiramoto (Iolani).
Also attending the meeting were Lloyd and Damien principal Michael Weaver.
"Basically my motivation is to protect the well-being of my student-athletes," O'Donnell said. "There has been no proposal that has been presented that would alleviate my concerns."
O'Donnell stressed that yesterday's meeting did not involve formal proposals.
"They were well-though-out proposals that very well might be chosen," he said. "But this was a friendly thing. We didn't want to conduct official league business at today's meeting.
They wanted to address possible alternatives that could be addressed immediately. And I applaud them for that."
O'Donnell informed St. Louis president Allen DeLong of his intention to forfeit the games in a letter sent last week. O'Donnell cited safety concerns arising due to the physical disparity between the teams.
"We've gotten beaten up by St. Louis, it didn't feel good," Lloyd said. "We got beat up by Kamehameha, it's been tolerated. We got beat up by Iolani and Joe Igber. But the way we've been beaten up by St. Louis is what my president questions. He's been on the sidelines and he deals with the kids.
"This is not something that has happened overnight. This is something that has been going on as far as equity for quite a long time."
DeLong is out of town and St. Louis athletic director and head football coach Cal Lee said he will not comment publicly until after the principals meeting tomorrow.
Lloyd said one alternative presented to the Damien administration yesterday was a two-tier league format in which Damien would play St. Louis just once. Another idea was to combine Damien and Pac-Five into a single team.
Both were rejected by O'Donnell.
"It stimulated a really good discussion, but Damien High School will not bend at this point in time," Lloyd said. "And we're willing to take whatever might happen."
Lloyd said Damien came close to forfeiting a game against St. Louis two years ago due to a shortage of healthy players.
Reaction to the news that Damien would not play St. Louis was swift and vocal. Lloyd said he had 28 messages at his office when he arrived for work yesterday. He also criticized a local radio station for using "ambush tactics" in trying to get O'Donnell and Lloyd to make a public statement on the air.
"As we were in the president's office we got radio stations calling and I really have a problem with how the radio stations addressed the situation," Lloyd said. "We were ambushed. I'm really disappointed in I-94."
Some Damien players and students have also come out against the plan to forfeit.
Lloyd was scheduled to meet last night with a group of parents who "feel that it's very unfortunate to come out like we've done and not (give them) the opportunity to have a say."
Lloyd said parents and students were not consulted on the decision to forfeit.
But O'Donnell stressed that the decision was made in their best interests.
"I'm intensely interested in how they feel," he said.
Said Lloyd: "Our kids, they don't want to bow out. They do want to play the game, because their feeling is they're not wimps and we can at least take on St. Louis. And unfortunately it's really out of the student-athletes' hands and out of the hands of the parents and will continue to be an administrative decision."
Billy Sullivan, a running back on last year's Monarch squad and a second-team ILH all-star, said although the team lost to St. Louis 49-7 and 84-0 last season, the games still provided a valuable learning opportunity.
"It builds not only yourself but it builds whole the team, because you win and lose together," Sullivan said. "I think last year when we lost it brought the team together for some odd reason ... and we realized we had to play as a team better. ... We still hung in there and played our best, so it teaches hard work."
But Lloyd said not all of the feedback has been negative.
"We've had some really positive calls too," he said. "People have said that they give us credit for standing up because it's a long time coming."
Weaver pointed out the need to look at the bigger picture.
"Some people have told me 'I thought our motto was Viriliter Age -- Act Manfully,' " the Damien principal said. "They misunderstood it. That's using the definition that acting manfully is being macho. There's a broader interpretation -- standing up for what we believe in, despite the flak we could take."
But Weaver appreciates the criticism.
"I think any discussion is healthy," he said.
Some have said players trying to get into college will be negatively affected by the lack of opportunity to provide colleges with game tape against St. Louis.
But O'Donnell disagrees. "Any football recruiter worth his salt isn't going to be affected by tape against one team," he said. "We certainly have plenty of quality opponents."
O'Donnell said protocol in forfeiting a game involves informing the league and anyone who could be affected by it.
"Games against St. Louis haven't been scheduled," O'Donnell said. "What I did was announced it so that they wouldn't be making arrangements with stadiums and so on and then have to cancel them. That was a matter of courtesy to the league to do that."
In the event the principals vote to keep Damien off the schedule, Lloyd said he would approach the Oahu Interscholastic Association about the possibility of scheduling games against public school teams during bye weeks.
OIA executive secretary Dwight Toyama said the OIA football schedule has already been set and he has not been contacted by anyone in the ILH.
Weaver said Damien would forfeit games against St. Louis this season only, based on the youth of this season's team. The team has just five seniors on it.
"We're not saying we never want to play St. Louis again," he said. "It's a one-year thing. Our intention in this was not to put the spotlight on one particular school."
Star-Bulletin reporter Dave Reardon contributed to this report.