By Ferd Lewis At first it was just a friend’s son playing a video game, but as he looked closer, Ed O’Bannon took increasing notice of a figure on the screen.
By Ferd Lewis For the University of Hawaii, when it comes to playing Southern California at Aloha Stadium, the "USC" could stand for Unmatched Source of Cash.
By Ferd Lewis Coach Chow's big opportunity to grab recruiting headlines is coming this week. Tuesday and Wednesday, he hosts the Warriors' youth football camp on the UH campus, an event open to players from kindergarten through eighth grade.
By Ferd Lewis The last time the University of Oregon had a quarterback being mentioned as a preseason contender for the Heisman Trophy, it was a big deal. A really B-I-G deal.
By Ferd Lewis When G.E. Coleman struggled with a math problem in elementary school, his parents knew just what to do.
By Ferd Lewis In the 80s, when the financially strapped Cal State Fullerton football team would play anybody if money was right, Titans coach Gene Murphy coined the term “body bag game.”
Usually when you lose your first 10 baseball games and 15 of the first 16 to start a season, the thud in the standings is exceeded only by the resounding one at the box office.
By Ferd Lewis Men's basketball coach Gib Arnold has 20 so-called "performance incentive" clauses in his contract, and softball coach Bob Coolen has but four.
By Ferd Lewis When University of Kansas football coach Charlie Weis first broached the idea of a football series with Hawaii, a Jayhawk administrator dismissed it with a smile.
By Ferd Lewis Larry Price remembers one of his first glimpses of then-All Pro end David "Deacon" Jones and the Los Angeles Rams' defensive line known as the "Fearsome Foursome."
By Ferd Lewis Football magazine author Phil Steele has earned something of a cult following here by presciently forecasting several University of Hawaii rebounds.
By Ferd Lewis It has been a time of milestone triumph in sports at Mid-Pacific Institute, where the Owls won a school-record three Hawaii High School Athletic Association state championships this school year.
By Ferd Lewis The first glimpse many of us got of Jane Croson was the wide, bright-eyed smile from the “Faces in the Crowd” feature in the Sept. 6, 2010, edition of Sports Illustrated.
By Ferd Lewis If you are Redbirds second baseman Kolten Wong, lately every day has been a picnic. Every trip to the plate an opportunity to feast.
By Ferd Lewis It isn't just the turnovers on the court that will hold back a basketball team, Rainbow Wahine coach Laura Beeman has discovered, it is also the ones in the office.
By Ferd Lewis If the University of Hawaii comes back from its Oct. 12 football game at Nevada-Las Vegas with a victory, it will be a good sign.
By Ferd Lewis With the No. 1 pick in the 2014 Pro Bowl “draft” Peyton Manning selects …
Amid all the fanfare over the forgiving of the $13 million accumulated deficit and other financial aid for the University of Hawaii athletic departments, another significant change has largely been overlooked.
By Ferd Lewis Lake Washington sparkles just beyond the outfield fence and, on a clear day, there is snow-tinged Mount Ranier rising in the distance.
By Ferd Lewis There were some University of Hawaii Hilo men’s basketball games this past season in which the Vulcans played before gatherings of fewer than 350 people.
By Ferd Lewis Four years and a couple of teams ago, Norm Chow did a favor for a coaching friend and, now, as luck would have it, that largesse may be about to be repaid. In this case, it would be in the form of quarterback Andrew Manley.
By Ferd Lewis Luke Kaumatule comes from a family of 10, but his Stanford University football coaches would like to make it nine. At Stanford, they're positive Kaumatule, a sophomore-to-be tight end from Punahou School, will be the next big thing at what is being called "Tight End U."
By Ferd Lewis The University of Hawaii athletic department has real and pressing financial problems, but is blackmailing its declining constituency the way it wants to go about fixing them right now?
By Ferd Lewis It apparently isn't enough that Manti Te'o is still trying to emerge from the shadow of Lennay Kekua, now there is another that looms. This one, however, is very real and figures to be with Te'o the length of his stay with the San Diego Chargers.
By Ferd Lewis For those who remember the Honolulu Stadium days when the University of Hawaii played its football games in Moiliili and rainbows could be glimpsed arching over the Manoa Valley, there is an enduring attachment to the nickname.
By Ferd Lewis There are any number of ways to measure Howard Okita’s superb softball coaching career. There are the years, 51 of them, now in the books as he calls it a career.
By Ferd Lewis The possibility Jane Croson will pursue a release from the University of Hawaii volleyball team to transfer to Arizona has sparked a debate inside the athletic program that mirrors some of what has taken place nationwide.
By Ferd Lewis The San Diego Chargers brought a pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming conclusion to Te'o's draft vigil, making him a second-round pick with the 38th overall selection on Friday.
By Ferd Lewis When the Mountain West Conference announced its initial round of TV appearances for the coming football season this week, the University of Hawaii was nowhere to be found.
By Ferd Lewis The revolving door of players that once spun with impunity at the University of Hawaii basketball office is threatening to catch up with the Rainbow Warriors.
By Ferd Lewis It is hard to argue with Manti Te’o for wanting to be home on the North Shore when the NFL Draft call comes this week, or with his handlers for encouraging it.
By Ferd Lewis It started as a joke, this loosely hung nickname of being the “iron woman” of the LPGA Tour. But as in so many things Spain’s Beatriz Recari undertakes, there would be no backing down.
It has been 73 years since the University of Hawaii last played UCLA in football, and as a contract to renew the competition languishes, some might wonder if it will be another lifetime before they get around to executing it.
By Ferd Lewis Several times, quarterback Taylor Graham had struggled with reading the coverage on an identical play, but this time both the understanding and the pass were on target.
By Ferd Lewis A 60-year-old U.S. District Court judge who grew up a Detroit Tigers fan and said she still retains some prized baseball cards has become the best hope to end the anguish of a lot of sports fans in Hawaii and across the country.
By Ferd Lewis Is this the year that those old enough to remember Rick Pitino as a University of Hawaii basketball coach finally let go and stop torturing themselves with the enduring question of “What if … ?”
By Ferd Lewis Jim Becker is 86 years old, and the eyes that were once keen witness to so many headline-making events in nearly 70 years as a reporter no longer serve him unfailingly.
By Ferd Lewis The four-foot high campanile-like trophy the winners hoist at iconic Bells Beach in Australia every Easter might be the most venerable piece of hardware in pro surfing today.
By Ferd Lewis When Shane Victorino came to bat for the Boston Red Sox in Monday’s season opener, the New England Sports Network listed his 2011 statistics, instead of the 2012 version, on the TV screen.
By Ferd Lewis Courtesy of the University of Hawaii, the Colorado State football team will enjoy the best of all possible worlds this season. On one hand the Rams will receive a reported $1.5 million this fall to play a road game at the University of Alabama.
By Ferd Lewis It is going on six seasons now since the University of Hawaii last attracted a sellout crowd at Aloha Stadium, the second-longest drought in its 38-year tenancy.
By Ferd Lewis It is approximately 2,629 miles from Manoa to Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., and the betting is University of Hawaii basketball recruiters no longer require the use of GPS to get there.
By Ferd Lewis One of the reasons the University of Hawaii athletic department wrestles with an $11.3 million accumulated net deficit today is years of Board of Regents hands-off indifference.
By Ferd Lewis His face as red as his sweater, Indiana coach Bob Knight walked sullenly past his team, out the back door of the Stan Sheriff Center and all the way back to the Hoosiers’ Waikiki hotel after the 1997-98 season opener.
By Ferd Lewis For all the reasons to endorse the proposed much-needed after-school athletic program for intermediate and middle school students, here’s another one that has largely escaped attention:
By Ferd Lewis After watching the latest end-of-the-season University of Hawaii basketball nose dive, it is hard to imagine there might have been a point when some in the Big West Conference were concerned the Rainbow Warriors could be too well-heeled, too competitive for their league.
By Ferd Lewis On Monday, we heard loud and clear from the men’s basketball coaches in the Big West Conference on the subject of all-conference honors.
By Ferd Lewis Big things were expected of Shawna Kuehu, a two-time high school All-State Player of the Year at Punahou School, from the time she set foot on the University of Hawaii basketball floor four years ago.
By Ferd Lewis The Mountain West Conference is apparently close to announcing a new multi-million-dollar TV deal with ESPN, but let's hold the applause in Hawaii while we examine the fine print first.
By Ferd Lewis It is the pratfall nobody saw coming, the face-plant that has taken everybody aback.
By Ferd Lewis When Brian Ching celebrates his 35th birthday in May, he will be almost twice the age of 18-year-old Houston Dynamo teammate and fellow striker Bryan Salazar.
By Ferd Lewis They are the ants at the picnic, the dark cloud that won't go away, the pesky cockroach you can't seem to swat. And, Saturday night at the Stan Sheriff Center, they were the party poopers on senior night, inflicting a deflating 64-61 defeat of the University of Hawaii.
By Ferd Lewis This is the point in the college basketball season when recent history has painfully taught the University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine to temper hopes and not to expect too much.
By Ferd Lewis Apparently it isn’t plodding 40-yard dashes, lagging vertical liftoff or questionable off-the-field decision-making that agitate the NFL Draft world these days.
By Ferd Lewis What is more remarkable, that the University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine basketball team is still in the hunt for the Big West Conference title, or that back in December they really imagined they could be?
By Ferd Lewis Remember the ferocity with which freestyle wrestler Clarissa Chun fought her way toward the bronze medal in the London Olympics last year? Recall the tenacity that carried her back from an earlier round defeat to earn a place on the medal stand?
By Ferd Lewis Anybody who thinks Manti Te’o’s draft stock is about to come crashing down this week at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis needs to remember one name:
By Ferd Lewis The first-place University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine basketball team.
By Ferd Lewis We're getting down to what you might call "money time" in the University of Hawaii men's basketball season.
By Ferd Lewis On a bulletin board beside his desk in the University of Hawaii baseball office, Mike Trapasso has a daily reminder of what ambition looks like.
By Ferd Lewis A towel invariably draped over his shoulder, bucket in one hand and cotton swabs tucked behind an ear as he scrambled through the ropes for five decades in Hawaii rings, Peter C.M. Jhun looked the part of the quintessential Hollywood boxing trainer and cornerman.
By Ferd Lewis When 6-foot, 10-inch center Vander Joaquim nailed a fall-away jumper from the right baseline at the buzzer Thursday night, his University of Hawaii men's basketball teammates mobbed him and celebrated like it was the game winner.
By Ferd Lewis Old Hawaii football players don’t fade away, they just come back as college recruiters.
By Ferd Lewis One glance at the Long Beach State men’s basketball schedule and the immediate reaction is that somebody has it in for coach Dan Monson.
By Ferd Lewis Recruiting can get down and dirty, and the legend of Norm Chow doggedly wading deep into a North Shore taro patch and staying there until he could convince a father that his son ought to sign to play football for BYU in the 1980s was a unique illustration of that.
By Ferd Lewis Even before the first shot was taken in the Outrigger Hotels Girls State Soccer Championships that opened Wednesday, there was a goal worth celebrating.
By Ferd Lewis New University of Hawaii athletic director Ben Jay has probably never heard of the late Henry “Hank” Vasconcellos, who preceded him in office by more than a half century, but Jay is the latest caretaker of his considerable legacy.
By Ferd Lewis There is the $50,000 winners share and the all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii, of course, but if you are Larry Fitzgerald, there is a lot more to look forward to when the Pro Bowl rolls around.
By Ferd Lewis When asked about the future of the Pro Bowl ages ago, then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle stated firmly, it would stay in Hawaii “until they kick
By Ferd Lewis The darkening clouds that had hovered menacingly over the Kapolei High football field Wednesday morning were beginning to release their moisture as a cold wind whipped through.
By Ferd Lewis When Hugh Yoshida attended national collegiate athletic directors meetings representing the University of Hawaii a decade ago, there was something he could usually count on.
By Ferd Lewis For two days now Russell Henley and Scott Langley have been at each other's heels, back and forth over 36 holes, contending for the spot atop the leaderboard at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
By Ferd Lewis In a 12-year battle to earn a place on the PGA Tour, paying his “dues” was never a question for Steve LeBrun.
By Ferd Lewis Here it is barely two days after the final college football game of the 2012 season (is Eddie Lacy still running free?) and we are already hip-pad deep in the first wave of way-too-early Top 25 forecasts for the ’13 season.
By Ferd Lewis The biggest referendum on Major League Baseball’s steroid era will be announced Wednesday, and it should come with the whack of a Louisville Slugger.
By Ferd Lewis "Shoot! … shoot! … shoot!" the Stan Sheriff Center crowd of maybe 5,500 beseeched guard Brandon Jawato with 0.38 seconds remaining Saturday night in the University of Hawaii's long-decided game against UC Riverside.
By Ferd Lewis It took the University of Hawaii 33 years to finally play a men's basketball game in the Big West Conference. Now, after two games in their new conference home, the temptation is almost to wonder why it took the Rainbow Warriors so long.
By Ferd Lewis At this rate, Garrett Jefferson, University of Hawaii’s heretofore defensive specialist, is in danger of blowing his once well-established cover.
By Ferd Lewis When Cal State Fullerton’s Andy Newman talks to his basketball players about producing under pressure, he speaks from experience.
By Ferd Lewis The Mountain West Conference restructured its TV and football playoff money to entice Boise State to stay, but there’s nothing that says the Broncos have to be the only ones who make out like bandits.
By Ferd Lewis Now that Boise State will be staying put in the Mountain West Conference (at least until the next opening comes along), the question is: Who might be the next aboard?
By Ferd Lewis You can make a case for any of a couple of dozen players being “snubbed” in the voting for the 2013 Pro Bowl rosters, where online lists of the aggrieved abound.
By Ferd Lewis We know the University of Hawaii is pledged to pay approximately $85,500 this season to bring its Big West Conference men's basketball opponents to the Stan Sheriff Center under the terms of its membership agreement.
By Ferd Lewis When we last glimpsed Nick Rolovich at Aloha Stadium in September, he was giving the place one long last look as if he might not be back again for a while.
By Ferd Lewis You still see them, the old, faded, barely legible “June Would Throw” bumper stickers.
By Ferd Lewis When Fresno State and Southern Methodist tee it up Monday in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl, it will mark the first meeting of once-upon-a-time conference opponents in eight seasons.
By Ferd Lewis Today they’ll introduce new University of Hawaii athletic director Ben Jay to the public, his staff, coaches and parking space.
By Ferd Lewis It was 2000 and the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team faced a seemingly insurmountable obstacle as it prepared for the upcoming season.
By Ferd Lewis Manti Te'o's run at the Heisman Trophy wasn't just about tackles, interceptions and awards, he wants you to know. No, Te'o says, it was also about opening minds and eyes. And, above all, expanding horizons.
By Ferd Lewis Tonight Brian Te'o will sit down and watch the Heisman Trophy presentation with his son, Manti, once again. Only this time they will do it with the nation watching them on TV.
By Ferd Lewis It was Zach Line’s dream to play college football in Hawaii, he just hadn’t planned on doing it in the red and blue of a Southern Methodist University jersey.
By Ferd Lewis When Western Kentucky decided it desperately wanted out of its previously scheduled 2012 season finale with the University of Hawaii, it promised to accept a future date and help UH find a "suitable" replacement for this one.
By Ferd Lewis In Brian and Ottilia Te'o's Laie home, we're told, there is already a long bedroom shelf that fairly sags under the weight of the memorabilia from their son Manti's celebrated football career.
By Ferd Lewis When Joey Jones graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in business administration there were any number of safe, sensible pursuits he could have undertaken in and around his Mobile, Ala., hometown.
By Ferd Lewis It is six days until the deadline to cast the Heisman Trophy electronic ballot, time enough, you hope, for all 928 voters to re-read the Heisman Trust Mission Statement.
By Ferd Lewis Now, that wasn’t really so tough, was it?
By Ferd Lewis Isn’t this where it all started to unravel for the University of Hawaii football team?
By Ferd Lewis Well aware that balloting for the 78th Heisman Memorial Trophy begins today, Notre Dame students made sure to get their campaign in front of the NBC-TV cameras Saturday.
By Ferd Lewis The name "Air Force" emblazoned on the front of their uniforms was a great misnomer on a Friday night when the academy football team beat Hawaii with one hand essentially tied behind its back.
By Ferd Lewis Never mind that they haven’t played in 11 years or competed on a regular basis for 15 seasons, the University of Hawaii and Air Force Academy football teams are officially rivals today.