By Ferd Lewis The face of Japanese soccer is showing its age now, somewhat craggy and residing under a floppy shock of hair turned salt and pepper.
By Ferd Lewis When Karl Benson was named the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference this week, he noted, “I had the privilege of being on the sideline three times for Bowl Championship Series games with the Western Athletic Conference.”
By Ferd Lewis When some folks look at the announced amalgamation of the Mountain West and Conference USA for 2013, they see a new 16-school behemoth.
Kenneth Mortimer sees vindication of the past.
By Ferd Lewis In the back rooms, the Pro Bowl is doing something it has rarely done on the field: go into overtime.
By Ferd Lewis The assumption was that the University of Nevada men's basketball team must have waved the stat sheets from the past in front of their big man, Dario Hunt, like a red cape in front of a bull.
By Ferd Lewis You sure won’t think it while looking at Nick Rolovich on the opposing sideline in blue and silver this fall at Aloha Stadium.
By Ferd Lewis Apparently, New York Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw wasn’t one of the 12.5 million viewers who tuned into the Pro Bowl nine days ago.
By Ferd Lewis With a new coaching staff and a promising start to recruiting, these are heady, hopeful days for University of Hawaii football.
By Ferd Lewis Given the frequency with which Norm Chow has been popping up on campuses, when he was spotted in the Punahou School area for sixth-graders last month there was a guess that he was doing some very advanced recruiting.
By Ferd Lewis For nearly 30 years, Norm Chow strode into Hawaii living rooms and presented compelling cases for some of the top college football prospects in the state to go away.
By Ferd Lewis By now we should have heard the defiant ultimatums and anguished woe-is-me wailings all the way from Montreal.
By Ferd Lewis Over two revealing quarters Sunday, NFC quarterback Cam Newton presented a graphic illustration of the best and the worst of the Pro Bowl as we have come to know it over 32 games.
By Ferd Lewis Back in the days when the Pro Bowl followed the Super Bowl, ESPN liked to bill it as “One Last Final Last Game” of the NFL season.
By Ferd Lewis Maybe it’s because he spends his working hours bent over, head between his legs and looking behind him that Brian Jennings so fully appreciates where he has been and where he finds himself this week.
By Ferd Lewis The Pro Bowl is five days away and we are left to wonder how much of a future the event might have here beyond Sunday.
By Dave Reardon Even without its starting backcourt, the University of Hawaii basketball team had a decent shot to win against Louisiana Tech on Thursday. But if UH is without Miah Ostrowski and Zane Johnson again tonight, against New Mexico State? Sorry, no chance.
By Ferd Lewis If it weren’t already, then getting a point guard needs to be Job One on the University of Hawaii basketball team’s recruiting list this year.
By Ferd Lewis When it came to hiring his assistants at the University of Hawaii, head football coach Norm Chow said he “subscribed to the Bill Belichick 20/20 theory.”
By Ferd Lewis Where in the name of Vaidotas Peciukas has the time gone?
By Ferd Lewis When Johnson Wagner got to Hawaii this month, fellow PGA Tour pros took one look at the bushy new mustache flourishing on his upper lip and dubbed him "Tom Selleck."
By Ferd Lewis When Tadd Fujikawa was stirred from his sleep Tuesday morning and told he’d be playing in the Sony Open in Hawaii, he wondered out loud, “Am I dreaming?”
By Ferd Lewis Erik Compton’s remarkable story has Hollywood written all over it and, indeed, there have already been approaches about book deals.
By Ferd Lewis His white golf bag prominently features “Panasonic” across the front in blue lettering.
His red shirt had a black and white “Panasonic” tag on the right sleeve and his black hat carried white “Panasonic” labels.
By Ferd Lewis The University of Hawaii has one more week to do what it has been unable to do for the past 26: find a 13th game for its 2012 football schedule.
By Ferd Lewis After years of massively overpaying for a head football coach, you’d think the University of Hawaii would be thrilled to let taxpayers know that some fiscal sanity has prevailed.
By Ferd Lewis When they told Jeff Law he could be the new University of Hawaii-Hilo men’s head basketball coach, he was so excited he barely heard the qualifier:
It was an interim appointment and he’d have to reapply for the position in seven months.
By Ferd Lewis Vander Joaquim had a mighty second half to remember Saturday for the University of Hawaii men's basketball team. And a foul-prone first half to forget.
By Ferd Lewis Maybe the University of Hawaii football team's 6-7 finish and inability to qualify for a bowl game weren't a disappointment everywhere on campus. Especially for the men's basketball team.
By Ferd Lewis Somebody lit a fire under the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team late Thursday night and Hauns Brereton was the one holding the match, again.
By Ferd Lewis When Rich Miano showed up to check out a jersey at the University of Hawaii equipment room before the start of football practice in 1980 they had but one question for him:
“Who are you, again?”
By Ferd Lewis It turns out that the University of Hawaii’s overtime basketball victory over then-14th-ranked Xavier spoke to more than just the Rainbow Warriors’ prime-time tenacity and timely resurgence.
By Ferd Lewis Peter Boehme hoisted the 60-pound Sheraton Hawaii Bowl championship trophy aloft and proudly carried it past the stands toward the Southern Mississippi locker room as fans and team members snapped celebratory pictures.
By Ferd Lewis Officially, Nevada is designated as the visiting team for today's Sheraton Hawaii Bowl game against Southern Mississippi. Unofficially, the Wolf Pack might as well be the University of Nevada-Waikiki for all the comfort and local familiarity they have gained in recent years here.
By Ferd Lewis The first rule about athletic salaries is that when somebody says it’s not about the money, it usually means it’s all about the money.
The second rule is to hold onto your wallet. Tight.
By Ferd Lewis The University of Hawaii could have a decision today on its next football coach.
The question is: Whose decision will it be?
By Ferd Lewis You could say it is altogether fitting that quarterback Austin Davis leads the Southern Mississippi football team across five time zones to the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl.
By Ferd Lewis Of all the candidates -- both announced and under the radar -- the University of Hawaii might interview for its football head coaching job in the coming days, the most interesting session to sit in on would be one with Norm Chow.
By Ferd Lewis As the University of Hawaii’s search for a new head football coach rolls toward Week 3 and more of the candidates’ names emerge, some Warriors fans are finally beginning to get a reality check.
By Ferd Lewis The last three head football coaches the University of Hawaii has terminated — or encouraged to “retire” — have cost the school in the neighborhood of $1 million in buyouts.
By Ferd Lewis After one meeting of the University of Hawaii football coaching search advisory committee Monday, it is too soon to say who the Warriors’ next leader will be.
But it is already apparent who won’t get it.
By Ferd Lewis All you need to know about this game and, indeed, this University of Hawaii football season, was summed up in the final three plays Saturday night.
By Ferd Lewis Ten minutes after the University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine volleyball team had outlasted Colorado State in the second round of the NCAA tournament, head coach Dave Shoji was parched and badly in need of liquid refreshment before meeting the media.
By Ferd Lewis In the University of Hawaii’s march to the Sugar Bowl four years ago head coach June Jones liked to say “everybody in the country” was following the Warriors.
By Ferd Lewis While the University of Hawaii-Brigham Young football series is the stuff of legend, the resumption of hostilities Saturday after an eight-year layoff means it is time for a refresher quiz.
By Ferd Lewis The Tulane University football team got run over by a “truck” in the fourth quarter Saturday night and everybody in Aloha Stadium got the license plate number.
By Ferd Lewis Black Friday? Not at Aloha Stadium, where Punahou School and a crowd of 20,058 saw plenty of Kahuku red.
By Ferd Lewis Before the University of Hawaii football team tries to, well, bowl over Tulane University on Saturday on the way to the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl, you hope there will be a drumstick or two raised in honor of the Green Wave and its president, Scott Cowen, today.
By Ferd Lewis A year ago at Utah State, the suggestion that David Graves was somehow a University of Hawaii quarterback was met with incredulity.
By Ferd Lewis It remains to be seen who the University of Hawaii's head football coach will be next season, but it can be reported that the Warriors have definitely found a quarterback, David Graves.
By Ferd Lewis Your first indication that it was likely to be a tough night for Baldwin High was a smile.
By Ferd Lewis Nobody seems quite sure who first came up with the nickname, but at Baldwin High they have come to refer to the challenge confronting the Bears’ football team Friday as “The Hump.”
By Ferd Lewis When officials of the Western Athletic Conference and TV partner ESPN huddled early in the year, they quickly drew a circle around the University of Hawaii’s football game with Fresno State as the presumptive championship showdown.
By Ferd Lewis With 38 seconds left in a 2-point exhibition game the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team was desperately trying to hold onto, senior Zane Johnson wrapped a brotherly arm around freshman point guard Shaquille Stokes.
By Ferd Lewis The University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine basketball team brought in eight recruits for this season, but what figures to be the biggest addition will spend it on the bench.
By Ferd Lewis Does membership in the Mountain West Conference come with a money-back guarantee?
If you are the University of Hawaii, that is not only the $650,000 question but should be reason to begin consulting with counsel.
By Ferd Lewis If the University of Hawaii was still somehow wrestling with what to do with head coach Greg McMackin’s request for a contract extension, this should have decided it once and for all.
By Ferd Lewis The Western Athletic Conference is out to stick it to the University of Hawaii football team for jumping to the Mountain West Conference next year.
By Ferd Lewis The race to the dotted line has been on for many months: University of Hawaii head basketball coach Gib Arnold’s contract vs. a new NBA collective bargaining agreement.
By Ferd Lewis Sometimes the best thing a struggling football team and its quarterback can have going for them on a long field is a short memory. The ability, for example, to forget that the Western Athletic Conference's highest scoring team at 36.9 points per game had managed just one touchdown through three-plus quarters of play.
By Ferd Lewis A week ago it might not have been something they would have acknowledged in public, let alone offered up to a reporter for print. But this time the members of the University of Hawaii's place-kicking unit could say it with chest-swelling pride and a smile.
By Ferd Lewis MOSCOW, Idaho » For a moment, University of Hawaii offensive coordinator Nick Rolovich said, he thought he was back in the arena league.
By Ferd Lewis MOSCOW, Idaho » In the crisp autumn weather you can see for miles across the rolling wheat fields of this side of the Palouse, where, tucked just inside the Idaho-Washington border, the leaves are turning brilliant colors
By Ferd Lewis Was it really just under four years ago that Boise State president Bob Kustra leaned back in a loge level seat at Aloha Stadium and talked about staying in the Western Athletic Conference, where the Broncos would work on "improving the quality of the (WAC)?"
By Ferd Lewis University of Idaho football coach Robb Akey was asked if he used the open date in the Vandals’ schedule last week to install anything new for Hawaii.
By Ferd Lewis Usually when they bring a student out of the stands for one of those kick-an-extra point-win-some-bucks contests during a break in the action, there is a smattering of polite applause for the effort. But not Saturday night.
By Ferd Lewis Any way you look at it, Bryant Moniz has trod a remarkable path to become one of the University of Hawaii’s most accomplished quarterbacks.
By Ferd Lewis A walk down the crimson-and-white-tiled Hall of Legends in the Aggie Memorial Stadium complex in Las Cruces, N.M., makes for a revealing look at New Mexico State football history.
By Ferd Lewis You’ve got to go back — back ... back ... back to the days of Julian Sensley, Big Matt (Gipson) and Little Matt (Gibson) — for the last time the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team had a winning record in the Western Athletic Conference.
By Ferd Lewis Seventy seasons ago the University of Hawaii and San Jose State football teams were preparing for another of the close, black-and-blue contests that had come to typify a rising rivalry in which three games had been decided by a total of seven points.
By Ferd Lewis Do you hear any of it: Growing shrieks of outrage or a rising din of discontent spreading across the land in the wake of the announced cancellation of the first two weeks of the NBA regular season?
By Ferd Lewis Even as it heads out the door of the Western Athletic Conference, nobody can say the University of Hawaii football team has failed to give its all for the dear ol’ WAC.
By Ferd Lewis Perhaps the only thing more questionable than offering the richest basketball coaching contract in University of Hawaii history to a second-year head coach is Gib Arnold not taking it.
By Ferd Lewis The Western Athletic Conference’s problem this football season isn't the now-infamous 22-minute replay.
It is irrelevance.
By Ferd Lewis Amid blue skies and a classic travel poster Waikiki Beach backdrop not many strokes from the Duke Kahanamoku statue, it was announced Monday that Hawaii will become the first state to have official high school surfing championships when competition begins in 2013.
By Ferd Lewis Maybe you heard the LPGA’s announcement Friday that it will waive the minimum age requirement so that 16-year-old Lexi Thompson can become a member of the tour in January, instead of waiting until age 18.
By Ferd Lewis A glimpse through the keyhole of the closed-door contract negotiations between the University of Hawaii and its football and men’s basketball coaches reveals a lot about where the athletic department appears to be heading.
By Ferd Lewis Sumotori Jesse Kuhaulua used to delight in wrapping a bearish arm around Honolulu attorney Katsugo "Kats" Miho, introducing him as his "father" and then watching people's reaction in Japan.
By Ferd Lewis After 32 seasons and 247 games in the only collegiate conference home it has known, the University of Hawaii football team prepares for its final spin around the Western Athletic Conference.
By Ferd Lewis The team in green was huffing and puffing Saturday night, sweating to keep up, straining under the weight of expectations at Aloha Stadium. The University of Hawaii football team?
By Ferd Lewis University of Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin, perhaps more than anyone on the Manoa campus these days, can appreciate the importance of timing.
By Ferd Lewis What if, instead of sportscasters high up in the Aloha Stadium press box, the people who delivered the descriptions and analysis on University of Hawaii football for TV did it in a free-flowing, conversation style as if from a table or couch sitting among us?
By Ferd Lewis With conference realignment the rage as the major college football powers move closer to elite superconferences, it can be difficult to keep up with all the machinations and verbiage.
By Ferd Lewis "The tougher it gets the better we play" proclaimed the sign affixed to the metal door when the University of Hawaii football team's locker room finally opened Saturday night.
By Ferd Lewis Fully prepared for a blowout, plenty of University of Hawaii football fans arrived at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday night with exit plans in hand to get back to the casinos and restaurants when the game with Nevada-Las Vegas was deemed tucked away.
By Ferd Lewis LAS VEGAS » Welcome to the University of Hawaii football series that most feels like it should be a rivalry but still isn't. For all the times they have played and for all they have in common, you'd think that somewhere along the way to today's 4:06 p.m. (Hawaii time) game these two resort-destination schools, UH and Nevada-Las Vegas, would have become a finger-pointing rivalry already.
By Ferd Lewis As the University of Hawaii football team goes through its morning practice, right slotback Miah Ostrowski squirms on a metal bench like a student exiled to time out.
By Ferd Lewis LAS VEGAS >> Bobby Hauck is the head football coach at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and a man with the audacity to preach patience in a town where fortunes are won — or lost — in a roll of the dice.
By Ferd Lewis Asked for the opening betting line on Saturday's University of Hawaii vs. Nevada-Las Vegas football game, Las Vegas Hilton Race and Sports SuperBook director Jay Kornegay quipped, "I don't know, but it is not enough."
By Ferd Lewis You don't have to look very far for the turning point in this one: It was the pregame coin flip. The University of Hawaii won the toss and, unconventionally for the Warriors, chose to put the defense on the field first.
By Ferd Lewis SEATTLE » Two years ago on national signing day, University of Hawaii football coach Greg McMackin couldn’t bring himself to utter the “W” word in public.
By Ferd Lewis SEATTLE » When prompted, University of Washington head football coach Steve Sarkisian can provide glowing chapter and verse about the value of a Norm Chow coaching education and make it sound like the grateful testimonial of an MIT graduate.
By Ferd Lewis SEATTLE » Don Schulze knows just how hungry University of Washington football fans are for a winner.
By Ferd Lewis Head coach Greg McMackin was red-faced, and it had little to do with standing on the sunny side of the field in 80-plus degree temperatures for the first half of Saturday's University of Hawaii football game.
By Ferd Lewis Things have changed plenty since the football teams from the universities of Hawaii and Colorado last tangled here in 1925. Or, the UH "Fighting Deans" and CU "Silver and Gold," as the nicknames went back in the day. And, then again, maybe some things don't differ so much after all.
By Ferd Lewis Once upon a not-so-distant time you suspect the University of Hawaii went to the pastry counter, tongs in hand, selecting its season-opening football opponents.
By Ferd Lewis One of the potentially expensive lessons to be learned around the University of Hawaii these days has nothing to do with the proposed tuition increase.
By Ferd Lewis How crazy of an idea is it that the University of Hawaii would someday play a football game in Japan?
By Ferd Lewis As University of Hawaii-Manoa chancellor, Virginia Hinshaw helped steer the campus to a breakthrough 10-year Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation.
By Ferd Lewis If you want a glimpse of how complicated and convoluted the future of University of Hawaii football on television could become here, keep an eye on the Warriors' game at Nevada-Las Vegas. If you can get it.
By Ferd Lewis For all the prestige of the upper-crust Pac-10, you might be surprised just how much the University of Hawaii has historically managed to hold its own in football. To be sure there have been poundings by Southern California, but there have also been bowl victories over Oregon State and Arizona State and road wins at California and Oregon.