UH soccer’s fan base would grow with on-campus field

It is a beautiful place to watch soccer. Actually, it’s a beautiful place to watch anything as the sun sets over Leeward Oahu.

And Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium is easily the best facility in the state for the sport.

But for many potential fans of the University of Hawaii’s team, it might as well be on the moon. It’s 15 miles from the Manoa campus. Traffic can be hellish in both directions from town.

Very few of the 500 or so fans attending Sunday’s alumnae game which the current team won 5-0 were UH students. Regular games against other schools have drawn around 1,000. When UH played Oregon to a 1-1 tie, the crowd was around 1,700.

That’s too bad, because it is a very good team and more people would attend the games if they played on campus — not just students, but people who live in town.

At 7-1-1, the Rainbow Wahine are off to the best start in the program’s 23-year history. They even win on the road, fresh off victories at Denver and Air Force following the season’s only loss, at Colorado.

Big West play starts for the Wahine with road games at Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara before they return home (as it is) for matches against UC Riverside (Oct. 6), UC Davis (Oct. 9) and Long Beach State (Oct. 14).

The Wahine play an exciting and unselfish brand of soccer. Especially if they continue to hold up their end of the deal and keep winning, they certainly deserve more support. And, hey, it’s like UH softball — free. So is parking.

But so far, for so many.

For the future, expect an on-campus soccer facility. It was on former athletic director Ben Jay’s to-do list, and his successor David Matlin has made progress on converting Ching Field into a soccer field with grass.

“Lots of work to do and funding will be needed for construction,” Matlin said. “Next step is cost estimates.”

Matlin said it’s “very early in the process,” and there’s no timeline yet.

But so far in his tenure as AD when Matlin says something will happen, it does.

Coach Michele Nagamine said she met with him in the summer and was happy to hear Sunday that an on-campus home for her team’s games is being worked on.

“The only thing I really insisted on is that the surface be natural grass. It would defeat the purpose if it were (artificial) turf. No one would come play us,” Nagamine said. “I think, for the whole student-athlete experience, when the kids are able to come on campus and see the facility that’s pretty cool. It would be a new wave that would develop more of a connection with the school itself. That could be very positive when you’re considering building for the future.”

Of course, there are some fans for whom Waipio is easier to get to than Manoa.

“It would be an inconvenience for us, but sure, it would be good for the program,” said Ernest Furtado of Waianae, after watching his eldest of five children, Sonest, score two goals within a minute of each other in the first half. “With the student body right there you could draw a lot more people.”

Sonest is a junior, so it’s extremely unlikely Ching Field will be ready for soccer matches by the end of her UH career — hopefully it will sometime before her infant twin siblings are ready for college.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.