Sidelines
TODAY is a wonderful day, a beautiful day, a day like no other days. The first day of the rest of your life. UH’s day off
a wonderful thingIt's a day off. It's more than that for the bone-tired Hawaii football team. It's a beginning. It's a rebirth. This is, so far, the best day of the season. This is one of the best days they could possibly imagine.
A day off. Has that phrase ever sounded so sweet? While teams around the country are opening this weekend (and Oklahoma jumps on another fumble!), UH is still in the middle of misery, merely turning the corner on the dog days of August. The team is at its lowest point. UH is tired, sore, packed in ice like fish.
But now here comes hope. The last two-a-day practice session was yesterday. The last one. The very last one. Hawaii made it through Hell Week. The worst is behind it.
It's time to celebrate. UH can smile -- if it has the strength.
"Guys will be celebrating all the way to their beds," quarterback Shawn Withy-Allen said.
They can't move. They can barely walk. Have you seen them lately?
They don't jog, they plod. They sleep walk. It's not from lack of effort. They just don't have anything left. They hit the gas and nothing happens. No go, no jets, no juice.
"Our legs are pretty dead," June Jones said yesterday.
Dead? They've passed dead and gone directly to make-die-dead.
The coach knows it. This is a guy who has done the unthinkable this season -- he's a football coach who has called off preseason practices because his team needed the rest.
(And now opening for Wayne Newton, the Fabulous Flying Pigs.)
BUT THE TURNING point is today.
This glorious day.
Today, the UH team leans back and sighs. There is no hitting today, no pass patterns, no drills. No sweating. No sun. No movement whatsoever if at all possible. Today, the healing starts. The first percentile points of recovery begin.
Now the torture stops and the fine-tuning commences. Here comes the big rebound, as their brains and bodies get fresher in preparation for playing the season opener Sept. 8 on Maui.
Tomorrow, the workload is cut in half. Tomorrow, there is only one practice in the day. Soon, perhaps in a day or a few, the spring will return to their steps. The starters will get the bulk of the instruction, get most of the time. Hawaii will start its focus on the upcoming opponent. The scout team will mold itself in Montana's image.
Survival is over. Excitement returns. Football practice will have never felt so good.
Today is the dawn of a new age.
Last night the UH players wrapped their appendages in ice and stumbled home. They eased themselves into bed, and perhaps a few even allowed themselves a groan or two. They dreamt of the season to come, and settled into a deep, deep sleep.
The celebration was swift.
They had a big day ahead.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com