The coaching future of two legends, Dave Shoji and Cal Lee, was up in the air as 2016 ended.

Shoji completed his 42nd season as the coach of the University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine in December before announcing he would take an indefinite leave of absence while undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.

Shoji has a career record of 1,202-204-1 and has piloted UH to four national championships.

Associate head coach Jeff Hall is overseeing the team in Shoji’s absence.

Whether Shoji, who celebrated his 70th birthday in December, would return in 2017 had been a topic of speculation even before the announcement of his condition.

Meanwhile, Lee, who guided the Crusaders to the school’s fourth state football championship, has said he was weighing whether he would return to Kalaepohaku for a 25th season.

The 70-year old Lee, a two-time national coach of the year, is in his third stint as the Crusaders’ head coach and has a 263-39-5 record.

Former UH and NFL coach June Jones recently took over as the school’s director of athletic programs and development. Glenn Medeiros, head of school at Saint Louis, has said he would welcome Lee’s return.

Stadium’s future uncertain

As Aloha Stadium heads toward its 43rd year of operation, state officials are facing a decision on the well-worn facility’s future.

The question of whether to keep pumping money into maintaining it or build a new one is scheduled to enter an important new phase in 2017.

The Aloha Stadium Authority said it plans to to make a public recommendation on what it sees as the best course of action after it receives a report from its consultants of the state of the stadium.

Earlier estimates have run as high as $300 million for the cost of maintaining the Halawa facility for another 20-30 years, surpassing what it might cost to build a replacement.

If the authority recommends a new building it is also expected to say whether transit-oriented development could be a component at the current site or whether it favors a new location.

Aloha Stadium was built in 1975 and cost $37 million.

Prep football due another change?

The debut of an Open Division in the Hawaii High School Athletic Association’s football championships opened a new frontier in 2016.

Now, we wait to see if it will be embraced permanently in 2017. The three-tiered playoff format for football was adopted on an experimental basis after the leagues were unable to find common ground in time to implement it season-wide.

The Open Division championship game, in which Saint Louis defeated Kahuku, drew 20,447 to Aloha Stadium as the most tangible benefit.

But some leagues also cheered the separation that having three tiers, instead of the two in use for the previous 13 years, provided the five football-playing leagues.

The number of divisions as well as how — and who — they would be made up have been topics of controversy since statewide playoffs were inaugurated in 1999.

Much of the friction dates from the breakup of the old Interscholastic League of Honolulu, which had combined private and public schools, following the 1969 season..