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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Volleyball dies while
eyes are on classificationTOO many topics for the middle of a slow sports summer:
>> They're going to kill volleyball. Yeah, the big news this week out of the high school athletic directors meetings is the football classification, but lost in the shuffle is yet another sad chapter of a once great sport. Rally scoring strikes again ...
>> Classification. I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. On the surface it's a great idea. A fabulous, long overdue idea. But the execution is everything. It has to be done right. The key question is still who goes where, and why.
To me, this has to be truly for Hawaii's small schools, and not Oahu also-rans with 1,500 students or former powers fallen on harder times.
>> Classification comes after a wonderful wide-open year in which Castle, Kamehameha, McKinley, Kahuku, Kailua, Waimea and Farrington all had reason to dream.
>> Coming up on the one-year anniversary of the announcement that ConAgra would sponsor the Hawaii Bowl:
"We're looking, thinking of it as a relationship," a senior vice president said that July day in Waikiki. "We're thinking of it (as) forever, if it could be."
What happened?
>> Forgive me, Carl, I've just never heard the term "Toronto-based sports agent" before.
No, turning pro early might not turn out to be the best career move. But if Carl English -- who would have been the biggest star on a potentially great team next year at UH -- decides it's time to move on to the next chapter of his life, then that's bigger than just basketball.
>> Dean Wilson is (was) in the U.S. Open. Jerome Williams is in the major leagues. Michelle Wie is on every channel.
Nick Rolovich played for the NFL Europe championship!
It never stops around here ...
>> So if the ACC doesn't expand after all, then what? Do we all just self-consciously go back to normal and pretend all this talk of jumping conferences never happened?
>> A new NCAA rule against two consecutive days of two-a-day football practices in preseason camp -- Two things: 1) I didn't hear the other end of the phone the other day when Dave Reardon called a few of the guys for comment, but I imagined tears of joy; 2) If I were June Jones I would have tried to keep the news of the new rule secret, then unveiled it as my own personal policy when August rolled around.
>> From Runner's World magazine, Pieter-Christiaan Michiel, prince of Orange-Nassau, the Netherlands, on the Honolulu Marathon: "The scenery is really breathtaking and it took all of my willpower to prevent me from wandering from the track onto the beach."
See, Prince, that's why I can't run marathons. No willpower.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com