---

Sport dreams appear
on summer days

AND then the cold medicine kicked in:

» I remember summertime, with the sky bright and the horizon blue and the wind blowing, warm and perfect.

I remember running and dreaming at the same time, the action on the field magically synchronized with the fantasy highlight tape in your head.

I remember balls in the air -- baseballs, footballs -- chasing them down like Willie Mays and Dwight Clark, in those days when it seemed like you could run forever and tumble in the grass like nothing would ever hurt.

I remember hitting the beach several times a week, pouring black sand out of your bebedees at the end of the day. Cutting against the grain away from incoming waves, doing unwitting agility drills while running barefoot over the rocks.

The Fourth of July rodeo. The backyard Olympics. The bike rides.

The dreams. Football was coming. Oh, it was coming again. Even when there was no sports, there was always sports.

On perfect summer days like today.

» Pay-per-view UH basketball and volleyball on KFVE -- I love these events on free TV, watch them whenever I can, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I think as Hawaii sports fans we know how good we have it.

But paying? That's not football.

Realistically, you have to believe that anybody who would pay for volleyball or basketball is already paying for it.

What you can probably hope for from this is to get a few more people out to the arena on big game nights, which would definitely not be a bad thing.

» Dear Sports Columnist:

"Hawaii is better than 5th. Will contest for the WAC championship with new def. coord. Glanville pumping new life into the worst def. in the nation. ... Off. will solidify when team gels around new QB. ... Upset pick -- Hawaii over Boise State. Games against USC and Michigan State early in the season will help new QB stabilize."

COMMENT: Now YOU are a good fan. That's faith. Herman Frazier should take you out to dinner. It's also a more easygoing reaction than my wife had when she saw the paper on Sunday: "Uh oh. Where did you put UH?" (Turning the front page ...) "Inside?!"

Well, you know. I didn't know those first two games were going to help the new quarterback stabilize.