Stipend checks late again; can it get any more lame?

Many of us have been there. Waiting for a late check that will cover the rent that was due yesterday and the groceries that your body says you need now.

This was the situation many University of Hawaii football players found themselves in last week when May turned to June and their stipend checks for room and board were nowhere to be seen.

Again. This situation has repeated itself too many times to count.

By the time they got the money late last week, late rent fees had been incurred, credit card payments missed and some players hadn’t eaten properly in weeks.

"It was especially rough this time because there’s a gap between the end of spring semester and summer school," senior offensive lineman Kody Afusia said, noting the previous check was received in early April. "Guys are behind on rent and eating just bagels for a couple of weeks."

Junior defensive end Luke Shawley is a former Navy SEAL, so he has been in calorie-deficit situations before. But it’s different when you’re trying to put on 10 pounds of muscle.

"And we had some real problems with our landlord," Shawley said.

In order to compete, college football players must work on improving year-round. It’s no coincidence that those who win in the fall are the ones who spend a lot of time together in the summer. UH has done a good job of convincing its players this formula works, and coach Norm Chow said "99 percent" of the players are here preparing for the challenging 2014 schedule after going 1-11 last year.

But many of them can’t do this without the scholarship room-and-board money. We’re talking around $1,300 a month — or in this case, two months. That doesn’t go far in Hawaii.

With no money, some players had no alternative but to sleep in the locker room.

"A lot of us bounced around. I stayed there a couple of nights," Afusia said. 

When I was first told of this situation, my reaction was, "So what is new? This has been happening for years." Then came the shameful realization that the desensitization is a terrible byproduct of a broken system.

UH is supposed to take care of these guys, and it failed in this case because of its inability to do something simple. What does it say when a con man claiming to be Stevie Wonder’s agent can get $200,000 from the school, but its football players can’t get a few hundred legitimately due them so they can house and feed themselves?

"It’s ridiculous. Some of the kids who live off-campus are incurring late-payment charges and it’s not their fault. It’s a processing thing," athletic director Ben Jay said. "These kids have to pay rent just like the rest of us and they have to pay it at the first of the month like the rest of us."

Jay said he has gotten Manoa chancellor Tom Apple involved and meetings are set with the financial aid and disbursement departments on upper campus to fix what is clearly broken.

"This situation is obviously and absolutely unacceptable," Chow said. "But the chancellor is doing a good job and I’m confident he will rectify it for the future."

We will see.

We can think positively and hope this signals a turning point and a connection between the two sides of Dole Street.

But what a shame that it had to get to this point.

"The coaches and the staff really care about us, and they did everything within their power to help get us through this," Shawley said. "Guys helped each other, sharing food. A lot of good bonding. In a way it brought us together."

That’s a nice attitude. But there are other ways to build a team that don’t drop your credit rating.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.