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Is Cinderella being elbowed off her national stage?
Well, part of it anyway, as Chaminade University will become only a biennial participant at the Lahaina Civic Center in the Maui Invitational basketball tournament it has hosted for 32 years.
After this year the Silverswords will become an odd-numbered-years-only player in the event it founded, hitting the road in even-numbered seasons from 2018 on, it was announced Wednesday.
And, that’s odd, not to mention a little sad.
The Silverswords from the tiny (1,661 enrollment) Division II school have long provided the eight-team tournament an underdog presence, even occasionally knocking off teams whose coaches made more in annual salary than it took to run the entire Chaminade athletic department.
Most years Chaminade was a victim, going 7-87, but if it wasn’t springing an occasional upset of Texas (2012), Oklahoma (2010), Princeton (2007), Villanova (2003) or somebody else, it threw some scares into the Division I blue bloods.
It was, in fact, a tournament given birth by the Silverswords’ 1982 stunning of No. 1-ranked Virginia. Cavaliers coach Terry Holland suggested to then-Chaminade athletic director Mike Vasconcellos that the tiny school at Kalaepohaku start its own tournament a la the then-premier Rainbow Classic.
Two years later Chaminade had a four-team field at the Konawaena High gym. It relocated to Maui and in 1986 expanded to an eight-team format and hooked up with ESPN in 1987.
Back in those days a tournament needed an NCAA member as host in order to secure the coveted status as an exempt tournament attracting participants with games that did not count against he NCAA ceiling. And Chaminade played the role.
With the 1990 tournament Chicago-based marketing and events specialist Kemper took over operations with its partner, ESPN. Chaminade got a berth in the tournament and a check that went a long way to underwriting its athletic program.
The announcement Wednesday comes after TV viewership dropped 19 percent for the championship game from 2014 to 2015, according to Sports Media Watch, and amid increased competition from the Bahamas-based Battle 4 Atlantis and other Thanksgiving week events.
It isn’t hard to envision a scenario where the powers behind the tournament wanted the Silverswords to hit the road so they could bring in another brand name.
As a carrot, beginning in 2018, Chaminade will play two road games against teams that are Maui-bound, a rarity for the program. In 2018, the pool is Arizona, Auburn, Duke, Gonzaga, Illinois, Iowa State, San Diego State and Xavier.
Nice, but hardly the visibility or stage Chaminade has enjoyed on Maui.
Chaminade and Kemper officials maintained the move was a win-win for the parties.
“Definitely a way to elevate the tournament and a way to (open) new possibilities for Chaminade, but it was a joint decision between the two entities,” Kemper spokeswoman Danielle Campbell said.
Perhaps, but it isn’t hard to tell who got the best of it or who is calling the shots.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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