Sidelines
BACK in high school, there was a teacher named Mr. Mayor who would teach us marine biology by having us dissect squid and then throw it in a pot of chili. He was an unusual teacher. He kept a monster in his classroom. Sometimes fish are
too big for the pondThis fish was big. This fish was bad. This fish had a look on its face like it wanted to rip your leg off. And whenever he caught a scorpion scurrying in a corner of the room, Mr. Mayor would gather us around and drop it in the tank.
SNAP!
Gulp.
Pau.
It was that fast. That violent. That vicious. There was no contest here. This was a fish that could swallow scorpions and not blink an eye. And I had never seen anything like it.
But I saw it again, years later, sitting in the meeting room of a Division I football powerhouse. An assistant coach was showing off film of his new recruits. One of these boys had come from St. Louis School, and they were particularly fond of him. On the screen, the Crusaders were facing some Interscholastic League of Honolulu opponent, and when the ball snapped, about 18 of them jumped on the guy with the ball and swallowed him whole. He was never seen again.
And the college coach looked at the video screen with devilish glee.
Just the way it is, yeah?
It appears that the administration at Damien is tired of being fed to the monster, like some scorpion in science class.
This, of course, causes all kinds of complications. Perhaps most important, it brings up the topic of classification in Hawaii's high school sports.
But Hawaii already has classification:
St. Louis 84.
Damien 0.
News flash. High school athletic programs in the state of Hawaii are not all operating on the same level. There is classification now. There are schools on one level. And schools on another. And when they meet, it looks like lunchtime at the fish tank.
Damien's decision only points out the fact that maybe this shouldn't be. You can't penalize St. Louis for being good, true. But those games aren't good for anybody.
OF COURSE Damien players are disappointed with the news. And they should be. There's no worse feeling than a forfeit. It is better to play and lose than to be told that you're not good enough. That is how football players feel.
But Damien doesn't have any more business playing St. Louis than St. Louis does playing UH. It's simply a different level of play, another degree of difficulty. And maybe it's time we start to admit it.
Classification is scary. We've never done it. And single classification, as in Indiana's formerly fabled basketball tournament, is often looked at as grand tradition.
But getting beat up every year shouldn't be a tradition.
It's not just St. Louis. And it's not just Damien. This particular example just happened to come up.
Hawaii already has different classes of competition in high school sports. We see it on the field all the time. It's time to think about putting it on paper.
After all, the scorpion is tough and crafty and it can sting.
But it doesn't have a chance against the big fish.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com