Sidelines
ONE of the funniest things I have read in recent years was by our own Cindy Luis a few football seasons ago when she proposed a Hollywood movie to commemorate the Hawaii football team's miracle comeback in 1999. The very best part was Cindy's casting, which had heroic June Jones portrayed by the dashing, mustachioed Tom Selleck. The role of hapless Fred vonAppen would be filled out perfectly by the great Rodney Dangerfield. Jones finding boundaries
the hard wayBrilliant. And humorously, piercingly accurate. In 1999.
But these days -- how did this happen? -- strangely, it is Jones who might as well be twitching, swaying, rolling his eyes and wearing ugly plaid slacks.
No respect ... no respect at all.
I'm baffled. Months ago, I wrote that a man who directed a team to 72 points against BYU could write his own ticket in this town. Apparently, not quite.
His proposals in contract renegotiation -- whatever they were -- were countered by UH saying it could not and would not compete money-wise at an NFL level. What Jones wanted -- whatever it was -- was cast as unrealistic by university officials.
Then he pitched a proposal for UH to take control of Aloha Stadium. This is a plan that had Jones' stamp all over it, his full weight behind it. And an almost unspoken hint that in the long run this would be one of the things it would take to get him to stay.
Rejected.
That tells you something.
Then, if he couldn't get the stadium, he at least wanted some new turf.
No dice.
And of course, there was The Letter.
This has not been a good offseason.
June Jones is finding out how much power he doesn't have.
All of us have had this happen at some point in our lives. We have made some grand, confident gesture, some power play, knowing that we had all the cards, knowing that all we had to do was put them on the table. And then, yes, you know what's coming, it's happened to all of us at least once -- nothing happened!
It is a shocking, sinking feeling, this realization, isn't it?
I hate it when that happens.
But that's not all. Meanwhile, Jones' "good friend" is going to jail. His agent is getting raked over the coals in ESPN, The Magazine. Editorials and letters are openly questioning Jones' judgment.
What is going on here? What happened? This was Tom Selleck. This was Governor Jones. The king. The Man. BYU -- BYU! -- was only a few months ago. After a season like that you'd think he would be at the height of his influence.
Did I miss a memo or something?
His every whim is being ignored.
It's like the bank is closed. They already gave him his grass fields and his superagent and his black uniforms and that unsightly H and his tough-guy team nickname and his big salary and the acknowledgment that, yes, he had saved them all and that, yes, he knew what was best.
But that's it.
When he asked for even more, he found his boundaries the hard way. He banked on power he apparently thought he had, but doesn't.
Wow.
I didn't think it could happen, but perhaps it really has.
There must be explanations, of course, but today what we have is this: It's not 1999 anymore.
That miracle season, even those more recent 72 points on BYU, are seemingly already in the rearview mirror. The fairy tale has ended. The movie is over.
None of us looks like Tom Selleck in real life.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com