Sidelines
Didn’t take long
to earn pink slipFIRED. Canned. Whose coaching debut was so bad that he was told he was no longer needed after only one game?
Mine.
Yes, I was one of the honorary "coaches" in the Rainbow basketball scrimmage, the late night kickoff to Hawaii's hoops season, Midnight Ohana. It was an experience I'll never forget. Even if my only "coaching" was to try and get Michael Kuebler to stay on the court and keep the illegal 6-on-5 advantage our team had stumbled onto during a moment of confusion.
There were a few of those. We were terrible. We got killed. In the opening minutes, our White team fell behind the Green (who wore black) 23-4.
Now that is some really bad coaching.
We couldn't even turn to the student body for help. At halftime, they had a contest. One shot, inside the 3-point line. The first to make it would get a partial waiver of their tuition. The women went first. One of them made it. She went crazy! Cheers all around.
Then, the guys. The first one missed. The second missed. The third, after a word of encouragement from Riley Wallace, missed. The fourth ... can you tell how this is going? They went through the whole line. At first it was funny, then, just uncomfortable. They got to the stand-bys. They missed. Finally, they opened it up to any UH student. There was a mad dash, people sprinting down the aisles, leaping over the front railings and onto the floor for a chance to win tuition money. This was their big chance!
They missed.
Everyone at the University of Hawaii who can make a basket is actually on the team.
At last, someone sank one.
We on the White team felt a little better about ourselves.
Luckily, no one cared about the game. They were all still buzzing about the costumes, the introductions. It was like something you would only see on television, but no, there it was, actually before your very eyes. It was Mardi Gras, Carnival, Halloween. Pink hair. Fuzzy hats. Enormous glasses. Charlie's Angels and a '70s era Bob Nash with an eight-foot afro.
It was the craziest team picture I have ever seen.
There was Riley Wallace, in the middle of it all, with the biggest, brightest smile. He was dressed as (use your Dr. Evil voice here) Fat Bastard. And nobody was having more fun.
There was Vince Goo, dressed as Austin Powers. And he actually looked like Austin Powers! He had the walk and everything.
The most surreal thing was seeing the two coaches doing a television interview, in full ridiculous costume, talking seriously about basketball.
I have to thank Wallace for giving me my big coaching break. For letting me behind the scenes on all this fun. For now never being able to look at him in quite the same way ever again.
"Did you see this movie, that this is from?" Wallace asked me in the hallway. (The best part was the big legs, coming out of the big shoes.)
Yeah. Of course.
"Why would you watch that? Why would anyone see this movie?"
This, from the guy in a fat suit, dressed up as a character from the movie.
Wallace, of course, hadn't seen it. So he would walk around saying things like, " 'Get in my belly.' They told me to say that."
No problem there for his assistant, Jackson Wheeler, who was familiar with the role of Dr. Evil. Wheeler had it all -- skull cap, makeup, gray super villain suit. So did guard Lance Takaki as Mini-Me. They were in character. They knew the dialogue. Backstage, they were in constant rehearsal.
"I'll do this!"
"Then I'll do this!"
"Then we turn toward each other like this!" (Dueling pinkies.)
Then they would almost collapse, laughing hysterically for 10 minutes. After they'd finally recovered, they would start practicing all over again until there was another fit of uncontrollable laughter. They did it over and over again, waiting for their turn to go out and dazzle the crowd. It was crazy, but this was fun, and they were laughing deep into the night.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com