Sidelines
Islanders get ready
for arena -- outdoorsTHE sun was hot and the guys were gasping and sweating. There was the familiar pop of pads and the triumphant hoots that always seem to follow big hits. It was football, but something seemed to be missing.
Oh yeah, no ... the ROOF.
And the walls and the nets in the end zone and the never-ending rock music.
It was one week before the season opener, and the arena football team had no arena.
Instead there were clear skies and daylight and, thanks to the baseball configuration at Aloha Stadium yesterday, palm trees visible in the distance.
"We're trying to put this thing together," Hawaiian Islanders coach Guy Benjamin would say.
And so the guys work their way into shape on hot turf instead of in air conditioned arenas. They have one more week to grasp the nuances and subtleties of arenafootball2 rules. They can only wonder, as they tumble out of bounds outside, what it will be like to meet up with an immovable object on a sideline at full speed.
"We're making progress," Benjamin says.
But there are reminders.
"Where's the tight end!"
"Tight end, hold that hand up!"
"It's a penalty if you don't!"
And then there is the man in motion, who can stop, start, run forward at full speed through the snap of the ball. It's unnatural! It's wrong! It goes against all football instincts!
And the field. It's manini! It looked like recess, when you and your friends marked off a small rectangle with orange cones.
And yesterday, that's exactly what the Hawaiian Islanders did.
"See! There's not a whole lot of corner to turn!"
There isn't. Sweep toward the sideline, and, oops, you're already there, defense waiting, in the game, a wall waiting. Pain waiting.
A lesson to be learned the hard way.
The Islanders have size. They can hit. They love hitting, you can tell. There are some prospects. But they're not anywhere near real, organized, contact, with pads, full-speed football shape yet.
"No they're not," Benjamin said. "A lot of these guys weren't planning on playing football," when this came up.
Now they play both ways. The recent UH football alums are adapting quickest, but football is something you can't walk off the street and be ready for.
The Islanders had only two weeks of training camp, and now that has whittled down to one and counting.
A week from the Fresno Frenzy at the Blaisdell, and the guys are outside, learning a new game with every step.
"Now you've got a touch of it," Benjamin is saying as the guys gather, sweating, around him. "You know what it's like. Now you've got a touch of the pace."
The guys huff and smile and nod at each other with tired satisfaction. They are getting it.
But soon they'll have to find a way to catch kickoffs bouncing off a net, and how not to end up in the stands on sideline patterns. Soon, they will play football inside, a most unnatural thing.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com