HHSAA needs a shoehorn to fit in these state tourneys

With apologies to Big Daddy Kane and Ice-T, schedulin’ ain’t easy.

Just ask Chris Chun.

The Hawaii High School Athletic Association chief has a monumental task each spring. With 15 state championships to be decided, Chun and his staff are responsible for figuring out the when and the where.

This job is more difficult than it has to be because just a two-week window exists in which to stage the events. Couple this with a limited number of available facilities, and that’s why nine state championship finals were contested Saturday.

That’s way too many for one day, and 15 is too many for two weeks.

The best fix is simple: Open the window wider, to three weeks. Five championship events a week is much more manageable.

Better for the teams and schools from facilities and logistics standpoints. Better for fans, especially families with multiple kids in various sports. Better for media coverage.

But with the way things are now, it would be extremely difficult to add a week on the front end and impossible to do so on the back.

The high school athletic year in Hawaii starts with 19 weeks for football, and that trickles down to compress the calendar’s ensuing sports; championships the last week of April would mean very short seasons for some spring sports.

Staging championships after this upcoming weekend would be against the DOE policy of not holding sports events after graduation.

One seemingly simple fix is to shorten football and start the spring events at the end of April. This is a tough sell, though, because football is a revenue producer and overwhelmingly the most popular sport.

So the realistic and logical solution is to change the rule and allow some championships a week after graduation. I play the other-states-do-it card sparingly, but, yes, other states do it and without problems. Seems to work OK for college baseball and other sports, too.

And if we’ve got high school football games in early August, what’s wrong with track meets and baseball tournaments in mid-May?

You’re right. The answer is nothing.

Football starts way too early, a symptom of the school year’s way-too-early start. While a few old-school coaches may think practicing extremely hard in July and August is a good thing, the rest of us know it just increases the chances for heat-induced injuries.

That brings us to a built-in excuse not to address this by considering it a sports-only problem and not a priority.

But this issue transcends sports. What is really accomplished sitting in unairconditioned classrooms during some of the hottest weeks of the year?

I was told a student-athlete had to choose between competing in a state championship event and taking the SAT on Saturday. Many times high school students have to decide between extracurricular events, that’s just life. It should never, though, come down to a college-entrance exam vs. a state championship.

The sports should schedule around academic schedules. But such a small window for the HHSAA events makes that more difficult than it should be.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783 or on Twitter as @dave_reardon.