Mission statement: Chow is standing his ground

The University of Hawaii and Brigham Young meet on the football field Sept. 29 in Provo, Utah, but a line has already been drawn in the sand.

Well, actually, across a conference-room table on Manoa’s lower campus.

But the message is unmistakable: UH football coach Norm Chow is protecting his turf.

You wondered when Chow, a quarter-century assistant coach for the Cougars, would go helmet-to-helmet with the Cougars’ interests on something — or someone — in his current capacity. How long would it be before the former Punahou School lineman and BYU graduate (Ed.D.) dug in against this alma mater?

Now we know: Barely three months.

The issue is the services of Michael Wadsworth, a promising defensive back scheduled to return to UH from a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wadsworth played one season (2009) for the Warriors before serving his mission in England. But instead of returning to UH this summer, he asked for a release to accommodate a smooth transfer to BYU. The stated reason was to be closer to his Orem, Utah, home, practically field-goal distance from LaVell Edwards Stadium.

For the most part, history tells us UH hasn’t wanted to keep anybody who didn’t wish to be here. Witness the basketball team turnover. But some cases raise an eyebrow or an issue of precedence, as this one seems to have. Not to mention the passions of the head coach.

Chow, we are told, offered to approve Wadsworth’s transfer to any of 118 other NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision teams, including several in Utah. Just not the one that wears blue and white and occupies a prominent place on UH’s schedule for at least the next three years.

Wadsworth can still attend BYU, of course, and even play after sitting out a year. He just won’t come gift-wrapped and be allowed to accept an athletic scholarship the first year because UH did not grant the release.

Wadsworth appealed the decision to a three-member faculty-student committee convened under NCAA and UH policy last week. After a hearing, the committee did not reverse Chow’s decision.

Make no mistake, UH isn’t publicly claiming rustling or alleging alienation of affections. But it is cognizant of and concerned about the number of returned missionaries from other programs that have ended up enrolling at BYU. And the Warriors are serving notice they won’t be a pushover for additional ones.

Prominent among them being the case that led to the NCAA’s so-called “Riley Nelson Rule” in 2011. The same Riley Nelson who started against UH as a freshman quarterback for Utah State in 2006 and then passed for 363 yards and three touchdowns against them four months ago in a BYU uniform at Aloha Stadium.

Otherwise known as bylaw 13.1.1.3.2.1 of the NCAA handbook, the “Nelson Rule” prohibits schools from contacting players from other schools while on church missions without permission and other restrictions.

Now there is the promulgation of the “Norm Chow Rule,” which, after this week, we can take to mean the Warriors are intent on holding their ground against all comers. Especially old rivals, former employers and alma maters on the schedule.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.