Vander’s strange departure caps his disappointing year

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.

He did, however, stick around long enough to see the bitter end of an 82-65 loss to the University of Hawaii, which puts him one up on UH’s disappearing center, Vander Joaquim.

Joaquim simply strolled out of his last UH game as a senior and into the night Thursday like he was Rory McIlroy, without the wisdom tooth complaint. Joaquim’s exit came after a personal foul, technical foul and short exchange with head coach Gib Arnold with 13 minutes, 45 seconds remaining and the Collegeinsider.com Tournament opener with the Air Force Academy still in doubt.

Reports say he gathered up some belongings from the locker room and then walked out of the arena, with just two points, two rebounds and three fouls to show for his seven minutes of play.

It was such a bizarre ending to a strange season that there was more buzz about vanishing Vander than the eventual 69-65 loss. When the foe and score are long forgotten, the incredulity of his departure will be remembered.

Players sometimes walk into the tunnel to clear their heads or let off steam, but they come back.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that,” said Riley Wallace, who spent 20 seasons as UH head coach, and gifted the Rainbow Warriors the postseason berth.

Perhaps if UH had billed it as a Body Snatcher Night, the event would have come closer to luring the 6,500 officials said was needed to break even.

The only thing that comes close locally was Troy Aikman’s now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t disappearance from the 1993 Pro Bowl. Just as NFC head coach George Seifert was about to summon Aikman from the sideline in the second half, the Dallas quarterback was nowhere to be found. On the ground, anyway. Aikman, Seifert was told, had caught an early flight back to the mainland.

An athletic department spokesman said Joaquim hadn’t been heard from as of Thursday afternoon.

It was not the kind of petulant ending we once would have imagined for Joaquim, who burst onto the scene two years ago as a JC transfer with a double-double in his third UH game. But, then, who thought the ’Bows would lose four consecutive games and six of their last eight, or that Joaquim, a preseason all-Big West selection, would only make the honorable mention list?

There was some fear that he might forego his senior season to play for pay overseas somewhere, but a quiet showing in the Olympic Trials in Venezuela this summer nixed that. 

This year, then, was to have been his payoff season. But he was injured early and, upon coming back, was frustrated by double teams and distracted by officials’ calls. Sometimes he seemed disinterested.

Joaquim should be remembered as the second player (after Melton Werts) to reach at least 1,000 points, 800 rebounds and 100 blocks in a UH career.

Instead, sadly, he will be recalled for one long walk.

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