Going the distance

Sporting News, The, Oct 4, 1993 by Bill Kwon

Having conquered time and space, the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors wonder what they have to do to get a little respect

Waikiki Beach. Palm trees. The hula. Mai tais, those exotic drinks, with little umbrellas. They conjure the image of Hawaii, the tourist destination - Hawaii, the faraway Pacific Paradise.

But the brochures don't say anything about Western Athletic Conference rivalries, homecoming or bowl berths. There are no pictures of stadium crowds, tailgate parties or end zone celebrations. In the middle of the ocean - 2,400 miles from their nearest opponent - the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors find themselves out of the mainstream of college football.

It might surprise some folks that football is the most popular sport in Hawaii. It might be more surprising that Hawaii has a very good team. In the past five seasons, Hawaii was 40-20-2, a .661 winning percentage that ranked 16th in the nation. Since Coach Bob Wagner took over in 1987, the Rainbows have played in their first major bowl games, losing to Michigan State, 33-13, in the 1989 Aloha Bowl and defeating Illinois, 27-17, in the 1992 Holiday Bowl.

"I didn't even know they had a football team," says Jason Elam, a native of Snellville, Ga., who played for Hawaii from 1989 through '92. "When my high school coaches told me that Hawaii wanted to recruit me, I thought they were playing some kind of a joke."

Elam, a kicker, became the school's (and the WAC's) leading scorer. But the distance between Hawaii and home became a problem that almost cost him a promising NFL career. After his sophomore season, Elam, a rookie with the Broncos, enrolled at Georgia and announced that he would transfer. He attended classes for a semester, but in the end returned to Hawaii.

"I asked Coach Wagner for my release, but he didn't give it to me," Elam says. "If he did, I would have been gone. I'm glad he didn't, and I'm glad I went back."

With Elam on board, the Rainbows went 11-2 last season their best record since they first fielded a term in 1920. Back then, it took five days by ship to get to the islands from the mainland. Now it takes five hours by jet. But the distance remains daunting in terms of travel, scheduling and recruiting.

The Rainbows traveled 35,448 miles on six trips to the mainland last season. To put that in perspective, the 49ers will lead the NFL in travel this year with 44,692 miles for 11 games (preseason and regular season). Hawaii travels more than any other NFL team.

That geographical barrier alone makes the Hawaii program unique, but being unique has its advantages.

One is a lack of national exposure. Hawaii is six hours behind the East Coast, five after mainland clocks are rolled back for the winter. But those hours become years when it comes to gaining national recognition. The Rainbows play their home games on Saturday nights, kicking off at 7:05 p.m. local time. On the East Coast that's 1:05 a.m. - well after the 11 o'clock news has ended and Sunday newspapers have been sent to the presses. The results of a Rainbows game played in Hawaii usually aren't available until Monday morning.

"I'm still trying to get a Hawaii score from several years ago," the Tampa Tribune's David Alfonso says jokingly. Alfonso votes on the Associated Press poll.

"Wagner's got a legitimate gripe," says Mark Blaudschun of the Boston Globe, another A.P. voter. "It's tough to track down Hawaii's scores since they don't make our editions until Monday."

Blaudschun rises early Sunday morning to catch the results on ESPN before the noon ET deadline for ballots. Other voters call A.P. or tap into the wire service via their home computers to get Hawaii's scores.

The solution seems easy enough. The Rainbows could play their home games Saturday afternoon or - even better - Friday night. But if there's one thing more sacred to college football fans than winning it's tradition. And if there's one thing about, Hawaii that isn't unique, it's that Rainbows fans honor tradition - just as any Alabama, Notre Dame or UCLA fan would.

In 1987, Hawaii polled fans about moving kickoff time to Saturday afternoon, but fans shot down that idea because of the heat. And this year they again resisted change when Wagner suggested moving games to Friday night. The Rainbows faithful won't buck tradition.

The lack of exposure hides some of Hawaii's more interesting traditions and conceals the unique experience of attending a game on the Islands. Sushi is served at tailgate parties and the stadium has a view of Pearl Harbor. Fans wave ti leaves, which, according to Hawaiian lore, bring good luck.

On the sideline, coaches wear aloha shirts and leis. Wagner, who grew up in Ohio, fits comfortably into the local traditions. While his assistants coaches wear the flowered aloha shirts Wagner wears a palaka shirt, the style that was worn by the locals as they worked on pineapple and sugar plantations.

But more than the hidden tradition or the Rainbows' absence in the polls is the burden geographical isolation places on recruiting.

Recruiting players from the mainland is difficult. For that reason, the Rainbows are mostly home-grown. More than half of the 124 players on the '93 roster are from Hawaiian high schools.