UH Football Deathwaltz: Game 5, Week 6—UH wants more $ for sports while public school kids roast like like huli-huli chickens
Eh. Is it just me, or is it really hot in this classroom?
This week’s prediction: San Jose State 24, UH 12 if Norm Chow starts Ikaika Woolsey, Taylor Graham or Jeremy Higgins;
UH 33, SDSU 28 if Sean Schroeder starts by the second quarter and stays in the game.
Last week’s prediction: Fresno State 44, UH 10
Last week’s actual score: Fresno State 42, UH 38
This was a hump week for the future of UH football, and also for UH itself. But that is nothing compared to what it meant to Hawaii’s 183,609 public school students. The full hypocrisy of our priorities, and our government and university leadership, got written on the wall in script much larger than a Wyland mural when UH Athletic Director Ben Jay asked for a $10 million budget increase the same week that:
a) UH admitted it was $490 million in arrears on maintenance (i.e., stuff that shoulda been done that wasn’t over the last decade) and
b) the state punted on the issue of leaving all those poor public school kids in un-airconditioned ovens for another ten years, thereby assuring Hawaii’s bottom ranking in education and its desperately low economic prospects.
But who cares, as long as there will be football?
Um, anyone with a kid and/or a conscience ought to care. At a time when 243 out of 255 public schools lack air conditioning, there is a moral argument against public spending on leisure pursuits. Many if not most of those 183,609 students don’t have Punahou’s cool grass and valley temps. They broil in classrooms with temperatures recorded in the high 80s and low 90s. The idea that education is happening at a temperature in which meat would spoil in a couple of hours is ludicrous, but also disgraceful. Sentimentalists who like to harken back to barefoot schooldays under the courtyard mango tree ought to be made to sit in a chair on the crown logo at Aloha Stadium for a day.
UH football is spending almost $2 million a year to subsidize rival team travel to the islands. The team is winless. The crowds are so thin that, if UH were applying to upgrade to Div 1 status from Div 1A, it would be turned down. And here’s what AD Ben Jay said: “UH football is the front porch of the university.” Yes, sitting on the porch swing and taking the breeze while the keiki broil, that’s our style...
But, hey, we got a quarterback controversy! Who cares about those kids as long as we got ours in private school? What’s interesting about the QB situation is Norm Chow is actually wrestling with how to win in the future while not giving up on today. If only our legislators, regents, boosters, unions and employers gave as much of a damn.
Chow’s in a bind. He obviously wants to get Ikaika Woolsey and Jeremy Higgins ready for 2015, assuming Taylor Graham is the man next season. But there’s a big morale issue at stake, both for the team and the fans. Last year’s Taylor Graham was Sean Schroeder, who gave it his all and ended up breaking his back, literally, while standing in for 120 heavy hits. By the unwritten rules of football Schroeder ought to have gotten his job back this year, but Chow, undoubtedly wishing the kid would get the message and just retire, went with Graham, Ben Jay’s boy from Ohio State.
Graham proved less durable than Schroeder, though, and got hurt earlier. Chow put in everybody against Nevada, and nobody did well; but if you looked at substitute QB performance through all games, Schroeder was doing a lot better than the others. He’s streaky, but when he’s on he’s like Luke with his light sabre.
The problem for Chow is, he knows UH is doomed to lose as many games this year as last, which ended 3-9. Next year is already on his mind. No matter if Schroeder wins a couple more games, UH still won’t be bowl-eligible, and he’ll be gone. And next year will be a repeat, with a bummed-out senior QB, which will be Graham, feeling he should start—and Chow bumping him for Woolsey or Higgins. It’s all in the cards.
Schroeder is the easy sacrifice for Chow. But Schroeder sacrificed his all last year. It’s not going to be pretty going down, because the fans want and deserve Schroeder, but we’re already entering the age of Woolsey Higgins, both local kids who will elevate the program’s profile.
Sorry, Sean. Hope you have some feeling left in your legs and arms when you’re 40.
Sunday’s game with San Jose State could be close—the Spartans faced three high-quality opponents in a row in Stanford, Minnesota and Utah State. They lost, of course. Worrisome is the fact that they lost worse to Utah State—a sign they’re worn down on defense. (UH is in the same position.) On the other hand, QB David Fales, rejected as cruelly as Chow might Schroeder, is a machine and even has NFL prospects. So, for fun, let’s say UH ekes out a win with Schroeder and loses as usual with the others. The game is far from being decided by one player at one position, but UH needs a spark, Schroeder is it, and without him they’ll sputter.
--Shamus
UH vs San Jose State
Saturday, October 5th
6 p.m.
Aloha Stadium
