LAS VEGAS -- Despite one evening in the Stardust Hotel and two practices at Clark High School and Sam Boyd Stadium, the University of Hawaii football team is still 24 hours away from kickoff with Nevada-Las Vegas. Who benefits from
this long, strange trip?Granted, Rainbows head coach Fred vonAppen has repeatedly said his team needed some heavy revisions in its travel plans, but this wasn't what he had in mind.
The Rainbows left early yesterday morning for a game that doesn't begin until tomorrow night. They don't return until late Sunday evening and that's only if the flight is on time.
So what's the reasoning for a four-day road trip that begins and ends on school nights? Well folks, it's so certain members of the UH traveling party -- not directly involved with the team -- can have a few extra hours to throw the dice and pull the handle.
Unbelievable.
What should be an important business trip for a struggling football team has turned into something of a pleasure cruise for community leaders, athletic department officials and university administrators, who are on the same flight as the football team.
FIRST off, this isn't a charter, where the plane flies directly in and out of Las Vegas. If it were, vonAppen would have the team leaving Friday morning and returning Saturday after the game.
Instead, it's a commercial flight that stops in Los Angeles before going on to Las Vegas. There are approximately 130 people in the UH traveling party.
Of that number, about 105 are players, coaches, trainers, managers, academic advisers and other support group personnel. The remaining people in the traveling party are members of the governor's staff and of the UH administration, including president Kenneth Mortimer and UH relations director Jim Manke.
Gov. Ben Cayetano is not part of the UHtraveling group. He and his wife Vicky booked a separate flight.
Obviously, there's nothing wrong with community leaders traveling with the team as long as the cost of the trip is being taken care of in a proper manner.
But what appears to have happened here is the tail is wagging the dog. You don't see four-day trips planned for games at Fort Collins, Colo., Provo, Utah, or San Jose, Calif. It's not in the cards.
THE reason the Rainbows are going to Las Vegas is to win a football game. That should be the only concern, not how much time is spent in the bright lights of Glitter Gulch. If you want to make a four-day weekend out of it, get on another plane.
Even on a commercial flight, the optimum would be leaving Friday morning, hold a practice Friday night, sleep in late Saturday morning, have meetings Saturday afternoon, play the game Saturday night and come home first thing Sunday morning.
In this scenario, the players miss only one day of school, instead of two. They arrive back in Honolulu early enough on Sunday to get enough sleep for Monday's classes.
They also could keep the distractions to a minimum and have a better chance against UNLV in a game vonAppen desperately needs to win if he plans on being here into the next millennium.
As it is, vonAppen has to keep his players occupied on Friday and make sure they don't wander off most of Sunday before departing for the island chain.
Part of the reasoning for coming back later on Sunday is because the Rainbows have a bye week in football. But what about attending class?
Unless the president plans on writing excuse slips, the players need to be in their seats bright-eyed Monday morning after nearly four days in Las Vegas.
It doesn't sound reasonable.
In fact, with planning like this, it's little wonder why things con-tinue to wobble off the axis in an athletic department in desperate need of better leadership.
Paul Arnett has been covering sports
for the Star-Bulletin since 1990.
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