Keeping Score
The Stanley needs
to be dressed upHANG 5 ... 10 .. or as many banners as it takes to appropriately recognize the University of Hawaii's athletic achievements.
Now that the men's volleyball team has won a national championship and will be getting a banner of its own, the time has come to redo the ones representing the Wahine volleyball team's 1979 AIAW title and three NCAA championships.
The Wahine banners, sized for Klum Gym, are nearly lost in the rafters of the Stan Sheriff Center. The four are faded and outdated ... and a little embarrassing for a program that has been a standard of excellence for nearly three decades.
This is the time to do it right. And not just with bigger championship banners, but ones also chronicling all the achievements of the four arena teams: Women's and men's volleyball and basketball.
Don't stop at national titles. Put up ones marking NCAA Tournament appearances, conference championships and All-Americans. The Ring of Honor on the arena's concourse is nice, but the plaques aren't as visible as, say, hanging up replica uniforms of National Players of the Year Teee Williams, Yuval Katz, Angelica Ljungquist and Costas Theocharidis.
Hawaii men's basketball coach Riley Wallace said he'd like to see everything that can be celebrated be celebrated. Perhaps acknowledging titles for small events such as the Tip-Off Tournament is a bit much, but Rainbow Classic championships should be marked in some way.
"Personally, I'd like the four arena teams to display all of their championships, conference and national," said arena manager Rich Sheriff. "My only concern is that it's done in a classy manner. It's impressive when you walk into other arenas and see what they have up.
"Because our space is a little limited, we have to be careful about what we do so that we can continue to do other events that require hanging equipment from the lighting grid and such. But there is room for each of the four teams to have their own corner."
We're talking maybe $30,000 to do it up right. Na Koa president Don Murphy has even suggested holding a fund-raiser at All Star Hawaii that would easily cover the cost.
"It's got to be done," said Murphy.
Apparently, there's no budget for such items.
"It's not in the budget because no one has asked for it to be put in," said associate athletic director Jim Donovan. "I could see just having national championship banners and then have some other signage to recognize the conference championships and postseason appearances. Perhaps a committee of coaches could help decide what goes up.
"I agree with (Wahine volleyball coach) Dave Shoji. His banners were sized for Klum and need to be resized for the arena. Certainly when you bring in a recruit, it means a lot if there's an easy way to see all the successes we've had."
"We need to make sure that they all match, the same kind of material, and make them large enough that they are sized appropriately for the bigger arena," said Marilyn Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano, UH's senior women's administrator. "We need to make it something that we can take pride in, where every time you come into the arena you'll be impressed."
The suggestion from here is to make the banners in contrasting colors to differentiate between men's and women's. Perhaps have women's banners green with white letters and men's banners white with green letters.
Regardless of how it's done, it should be done right.
And right now.
Cindy Luis is Star-Bulletin sports editor.
Her column appears periodically.
Email Cindy: cluis@starbulletin.com