More on the Hawaii-Houston scrap

Here is one letter to the Honolulu Advertiser defending the Hawaii football brawl, appearing on 1/7/04


Warriors were simply defending themselves

After reading the initial blast of negative letters about the Hawai'i Bowl game, the UH players and June Jones, I thought I should balance the scale.

I was working on the field and had close-up observations from start to finish, which included Houston players trying to intimidate UH players with overly abusive taunting and cheap-shot punches throughout the game. It actually started from the warm-up period. Seemed that a Houston strategy was to scare the Hawai'i boys into losing the game.

Do the letter writers expect UH players to let Houston players continue to punch and kick them throughout the entire game if the refs don't stop the offenders?

The Hawai'i players were defending themselves and their teammates. After the initial pushing and shoving, the Houston players initiated the vicious punches and kicks, including flying blindside kicks. The Hawai'i players fought back. Some of the Houston coaches were double-palm-thrust pounding Hawai'i players in the chest instead of concentrating on pulling their own players back. When several Houston players got a Hawai'i player pinned down on the turf and pummeled him with vicious punches and kicks, the Hawai'i players went berserk. Does anyone think that the other Hawai'i players should run away from a teammate in peril?

The UH players played their hearts out and left it all on the field for themselves and for us, the people of Hawai'i. They deserve much more from the uninformed false-crack critics.

Danny Black
Wahiawa

Thank you Danny Black :)

BCS - Bull Crap System

All the whining about the college football Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has been about Southern Cal not being in the Sugar Bowl! But that stuff is miniscule on my beef with the whole BCS system!

BCS only allows schools from big-time conferences and Notre Dame (if it's team has enuff wins, which it didn't this season) to compete in its bowl games. That means Boise State (WAC), Utah (Mountain West), Southern Miss (Conference USA) and North Texas (Sun Belt) and Navy (independent team with winning record) are locked out! But how do we know if those teams can go toe-to-toe with the BCS teams come postseason!

What college football needs is a playoff system. The champions of 11 Division 1-A conferences, and 5 at large bids (with independents and major conference 2nd place teams) will play in a 16 team playoff! (Credit to Ferd Lewis of Honolulu Advertiser for this idea). Or have a 32 team playoff! This is how championships are supposed to be determined. Not with polls!

Plus, it will give Hawaii more incentive to win more games, instead of relying on the Hawaii Bowl.

But the people's love of bowl games, plus the $$$ generated by bowls will keep the playoff system from happening anytime soon!