|
Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Official or not,
Vili the Warrior still
waiting for the replayIRST, a few words about The Game.
I know Jim Leahey and Doug Vaioleti have no control over what goes on in the TV truck (and you can be working with unfamiliar colleagues on the road, who may not all have the experience of the crew back home), but there is no way KFVE should not have shown the replay of the game's final play with the clock on the screen. This was the game's last play. It decided everything. It was a controversial ending. There was an officials' conference, further confusing the moment. Was it a good call? Was time left?
Gonfunit, show us the replay!
As they said on "The Six-Million Dollar Man": "We have the technology."
(By the way, nice try by the hometown clock operator in leaving :01 on the clock, and good call by the referee -- we can only assume -- in not falling for it. What a break. June Jones should not yell at officials for at least the next three years.)
San Jose State wasted a timeout, butchered the clock, called a stupid all-or-nothing play when it should have left itself time to kick. The SJSU coach who kept calling that little bootleg roll-out in which they left Travis LaBoy unblocked, especially on the last drive of the game (after it hadn't worked, oh, about five times), should be running stadium stairs at 6 a.m.
And UH's vaunted run-and-shoot scoring 13 points against San Jose State in year 5 of the June Jones era?
Eh, lucky you live Hawaii. Lucky you live in the WAC.
>> The lasting image Chip Davey has of his friend Ted Kimura is of all the "Why Bugs Leave Home" youth sports jerseys lovingly tucked away in drawers all over the state.
Kimura, who died last month, was the president of Island Termite (thus the slogan) who had sponsored youth teams, sports and leagues for years. He was also a driving force behind the Aikane Foundation.
"It was all out of his own pocket," Davey said. "We're talking like 30-, 40-grand a year" for kids' sports, especially in the Kalihi area.
Kimura touched the lives of thousands, even if they never knew.
>> The last time I saw Evan Dobelle he told me he was trying out for the Lakers.
>> Disclosure: In all my experiences with Vili the Warrior, he has been nothing but a really nice man with me. Personally, I like the guy.
But it's interesting in light of these recent events that UH is noting that he's an "unofficial" mascot. Officially, yes. But on the sidelines and especially on TV, he is, for all intents and purposes, the face of the University of Hawaii.
Unofficial? Unofficial mascots perform in the stands. Vili is the star of every (especially national) UH telecast, they give him a microphone, he's in on the introductions.
It's an argument of semantics, but he looks official to me, and to anyone else, should anything happen.
It sounds like Vili has recently realized the gravity of the situation. UH is heavily invested in this guy, no matter which word it wants to use.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com
