OIA says it won’t participate in football open division

WAIKOLOA >>An announcement made Friday by the Oahu Interscholastic Association might mean the death of the three-tiered state football tournament.

About 15 minutes after the Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive board ratified the continuation of the three divisions for next year and beyond at the Hilton Waikoloa, OIA executive director Ray Fujino told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that his league intends to declare its teams for Division I and D-II only — and not for the Open Division — by the Sept. 1 deadline.

On the face of it, it means that, unlike last year when the OIA champion (Kahuku) advanced to the first Open Division (top tier) championship game, the farthest the OIA winner can go this year is to the top of the middle (D-I ) tier.

However, the Interscholastic League of Honolulu still has to decide how to declare its teams, and it’s possible that the ILH’s top teams (Saint Louis, Punahou, Kamehameha) will decide to opt for the middle division in order to compete with the best the OIA has to offer — teams such as Kahuku, Waianae, Farrington and Mililani.

If that happens, the Open Division would be close to useless as the top division and, seemingly, would have to be abandoned.

But, as HHSAA executive director Chris Chun pointed out after Fujino’s announcement, none of this is final.

“I understand the OIA made that statement,” Chun said. “But it’s not official until the league declarations are officially made to us. We will be reconvening the (HHSAA’s) football committee to work on it and see what we can do. Four (the ILH, Maui Interscholastic League, Kauai Interscholastic Federation and Big Island Interscholastic Federation) out of the five leagues want the three tiers.”

One ILH athletic director who did not want to be identified, said, “All that work and then the voting for three tiers and now we’re going backwards.”

The “work” he was referring to was done throughout the year by the HHSAA football committee, which was tasked with identifying the pros and cons of the three-division pilot program that began in 2016. That committee recommended the three-division format should continue going forward, and on Thursday, the Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association passed a proposal to do just that by a 63-27 count. From there it went to the HHSAA executive board, where it won approval Friday by a weighted count of 65.75 to 29.25.

No athletic directors from the OIA wanted to comment Friday, referring all questions to Fujino. A day earlier, all 27 OIA ADs voted as a bloc, showing a united front and clarifying their stance for the first time since the Open Division was created as the top tier in 2016.

Reggie Torres, a former Kahuku head coach and now an assistant with Punahou, said, “Knowing the guys on this side (Kahuku, where he teaches), they want to play the best. A championship is not a championship unless you get a chance to play the best. It’s the same with the ILH. They want to play the best. In 2010, when we (the Red Raiders) had to forfeit and didn’t make it to the states, I know Saint Louis really wanted to play us. They felt like their championship had an asterisk on it.”

As it stands now, unless changes are made, Kahuku is in D-I for states and the ILH’s big three is in the Open.

Eddie Klaneski, the Damien head coach, said Friday by phone that he was shocked about the OIA’s announcement.

“They’re trying to force the HHSAA to abandon the three-tier system,” he said. “They’re trying to kill it. It wouldn’t make any sense for ILH teams to declare for the Open now. They’ll drop down, I’m sure. It will basically be like the old (two-tiered) state tournament.”

It is also quite possible that the ILH big three will choose to declare for the Open and that teams from the Neighbor Island leagues will fill out the bracket.

Klaneski also said it seemed odd that the OIA would want something that gives it less representation at states. Instead of four OIA teams in Open, three in D-I and two in D-II, it will likely mean three OIA teams in D-I and two in D-II.

This is how Fujino told the Star-Advertiser about the OIA’s decision: “We’re not going to declare in the Open,” he said. “The OIA is going to declare only in Division I and Division II. That was our OIA decision, the league membership decision from the ADs and principals. We’re pretty firm in what our stance is.”

When the Open Division was created, the OIA had concerns about the fact that it didn’t include teams from the Neighbor Islands and with the way revenue was going to be distributed, among others. League president Wade Araki sent a Sept. 9, 2016, letter to the HHSAA’s Chun, citing the league’s concerns. Chun answered the letter, and up until Thursday, it wasn’t clear if those concerns were addressed. The OIA also threatened to boycott the state tournament at that time.

The HHSAA football committee, according to Chun, will work to find out if those concerns can be mollified and how the OIA, the rest of the leagues and the HHSAA can find common ground moving forward. Due to an amendment passed by the HHSAA esecutive board as part of the three-tiered football proposal, the football commitee can legislate changes to the state football tournament without executive board approval.