THE key word is exposure. Prep standouts would
benefit by net exposureThat's what I'm thinking about at this time of year.
How much of it will our best prep football athletes receive this fall, and how far will it go?
Will they be recognized by enough mainland college recruiters to be offered a wide array of opportunities commensurate with their talent and potential?
Hawaii's obvious problem as a recruiting venue is that it's way the heck out here in the Pacific Ocean. To most college recruiters beyond the Rockies, our prep athletes might as well not exist.
When the Shawn Akina Classic was active, event director Skip Akina several times brought Prep Football Report editor Tom Lemming in to watch and assess local players.
His anointing of a local player usually meant schools from one coast to the other would be aware of him.
All it took was one sighting and a star was born.
As a result, Lemming successfully fostered the nominations of Farrington guard Pat Kesi (Dallas Cowboys) and Punahou defensive lineman Jason Ching (Notre Dame) for USA Today All-American recognition. His influence also paid off with All-American second-team berths for Kahuku guard Chris Naeole (New Orleans Saints) and St. Louis defensive lineman Vavae Tata (UCLA).
But there is no Shawn Akina Classic these days. And there is no other compelling reason for a Lemming or any other recruiting publication editor with similar influence to visit us in preseason.
It would be so helpful to have someone like that come here again and then go home to spread the gospel of Hawaii's prep talent from personal experience.
But we have no event that'll get them here now, so we have to go to them.
We have to go to them through the world wide web.
I really think it's time for the leagues in Hawaii to develop their own web sites, featuring full-length posed or action photos, player profiles, and weekly statistical updates.
The cost would be $400 or $500 -- maybe more -- to put together an eye-catching page that sells Hawaii's prep athletes.
A chat room for coaches could be set up on the site as well as audio devices and even video snippets of certain athletes.
And the cost of doing this might actually be a lot less than I mentioned with the cooperation of local servers willing to help nonprofit organizations.
I spoke to an instructor at a local internet spot the other night who said she wouldn't be surprised if some servers would want to just give their services in return for a credit line at the bottom of the site.
The Hawaii High School Athletic Association is in the process of setting up its own site. Executive director Dwight Toyama said he knows nothing about doing this but he's determined to find out and launch Hawaii's postseason sports to the nation and the world.
Web exposure would probably bring the Eastern colleges into the picture and that would be justice. Our best kids deserve to be known and recruited on a truly nationwide scale.
St. Louis football head coach Cal Lee, whose program has been nationally ranked for a decade, said he's also going to learn how to launch a web site.
Developing web sites for local prep sports would also further the cause of computer education.
That's because students would be called upon to update and maintain the sites.
It goes without saying that, with about 40 million people on line worldwide, the opportunity to promote Hawaii's young athletes is limitless.
With the net, our age-old problem of isolation vanishes.