Ferd Lewis: Sheriff’s memory honored with every click of the turnstile

In weeks like this you can almost imagine the bronze bust of Stan Sheriff giving a knowing I-told-you-so wink in the lobby of the arena that carries his name.

When large crowds pour into the University of Hawaii’s on-campus home it reaffirms Sheriff’s strongly held conviction that the school needed an arena that could host events like this week’s Big West Conference men’s volleyball tournament, which opens Thursday.

Amid the surging crowds of two weeks ago, nearly 50 sellouts in its 25-year history and hundreds more games and matches drawing upward of 7,000, there are opportunities to add to the facility’s resume this week. So much so that you wonder how it was that a facility of 10,300 seats seemed such a controversial issue.

But, in the late 1980s and early ’90s, when Sheriff was trying to advance it into reality, it was a decidedly uphill battle.

A 1990 newspaper editorial called the notion of building a 10,000-seat facility “questionable.”

When some state and even university officials maintained that a 5,000- — or even 4,500- — seat facility would be plenty, Sheriff dug in. Anything less than the 10,300 seats UH ended up with, he argued, would be too few and too short-sighted.

Amid talk of going to 4,500 seats, basketball coach Riley Wallace said in a 1991 statement that he feared “our arena is sliding away” and would call it a “glorified high school gym.”

Besides an arena that could be home to the school’s men’s and women’s volleyball and basketball teams, Sheriff envisioned a facility that would allow UH to host conference, as well as NCAA regional and national, championships, as well as pro and other entertainment events.

Something that 4,500 seats would not do justice to as an overdue replacement for rickety “Slum Gym,” as Klum Gym was known, and Blaisdell Arena, where UH did not hold title. Thankfully, a like-minded governor, John Waihee, and UH president, Kenneth Mortimer, and enough supportive legislators agreed.

Sheriff, who would sometimes describe himself as “just an old coach,” was clearly more than that. He was a visionary in so many respects. He helped hatch the plan that put a wide array of UH sports on TV. He saw the need for the football team’s offense to be inventive.

And, most of all, as pictured on the wall behind his desk in a framed water color painting, was the vision of an arena. It was of the 16,324-seat UNI Dome at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, whose 1976 rise he had ushered in.

The picture served as a daily inspiration for some of what he had envisioned for UH. He put so much into the UH project that he would not live to see the opening of its doors in 1994.

The battles that Sheriff waged on behalf of the arena made him some political enemies, which is why it wasn’t until 1998 that the facility, which opened as the Special Events Arena, was eventually named in Sheriff’s honor. It followed by five years the dedication of the UNI Dome to Sheriff’s memory.

Since then, NCAA women’s and men’s national volleyball tournaments have been held in Manoa, as well as games featuring Olympic and NBA teams.

Twenty-six years after his death, as large volleyball crowds again flock to the arena, we are again reminded of the wisdom of the man the arena is named for.

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