Warriors will play
in bowl, Jones says
After threatening to pull his team from the Hawaii Bowl if the university didn't ensure all players were academically eligible, Hawaii coach June Jones said yesterday he was confident he got his message across to administrators and the Warriors will play in the Christmas Day game.
"We're going to play the football game," Jones told Houston's KRIV-TV.
Hawaii athletics spokes-woman Lois Manin said yesterday she was unaware of what Jones said in the TV interview but confirmed that Hawaii (8-5) would play against Houston (7-5) as scheduled.
Jones said Monday he would pull his team from the bowl rather than risk losing players to academic suspensions.
The Western Athletic Conference requires that student-athletes pass a minimum of six-credit hours in the fall semester leading up to a postseason competition.
Last year, university officials said that because of the short time between the posting of grades and the Christmas Day game, they were unable to officially certify that players had met the requirement.
After grades were submitted Dec. 28, starting quarterback Timmy Chang was found to have been ineligible. The conference publicly reprimanded Hawaii, suspended Chang for this year's season opener and fined the school $5,000.
Jones said yesterday he wanted to send a message to administrators.
"My intent was to certainly get the attention of everybody that somebody needs to get their grades in and we need to know where everybody stands," Jones said.
Athletic director Herman Frazier already had said the university was taking steps to ensure that the athletes are certified and that grades would be checked as early as Dec. 15.
