Dave Reardon: Hawaii fans are missing, and missing out, on excitement

The University of Hawaii will play at least one more home football game without spectators, as its proposal for some fans at Saturday’s homecoming matchup with Fresno State was denied by the state yesterday.

It might be of little consolation, but thousands of high school athletes in the islands have also had to deal with coronavirus fallout. They weren’t allowed to compete at all last year.

Hawaii prep football is back, though, even though very few of the in-person spectators are yet.

On Friday, we got to see one of the most thrilling local prep football games in many years Friday at Aloha Stadium. And thankfully, Kamehameha’s 23-21 dramatic and historic victory over Saint Louis was televised, because spectators are not allowed at the 50,000-seat stadium. (In this case it’s not because of the pandemic but because the stands have been deemed unsafe at the stadium that is closing in on 50 years of existence.)

Let’s look at it from the perspective of the participants: They made lifetime memories and some of the players might have caught the eye of college coaches because of plays they made in an actual game … something they couldn’t have done last year.

The Interscholastic League of Honolulu football schedule is abbreviated, but that’s better than last year, when hardly any high school sports were played no football was played in the fall. And the big three in the ILH — Kamehameha, Punahou and Saint Louis — are all 1-1 after playing each other. It’s just a four-game regular season for them.

But why are the Oahu public schools starting football practice only now, with their first games scheduled for Oct. 15?

At first glance, this seems very unfair. But a quick look at the Oahu Interscholastic Association’s schedule reveals a seven-week regular-season slate that makes sense, and playoffs that conclude Dec. 18 with league championships. Of course, we all have to keep our fingers crossed in hope that the worst of COVID-19 is behind us and doesn’t have other plans.

The OIA falls under the Department of Education — a state institution. One reason more time was needed was so staff and student-athletes could get vaccinated by last week’s deadline.

The private schools of the ILH don’t have to answer to the state as much, and that’s why they were able to start up earlier. Maybe that’s also why a few parents of players were allowed at the ‘Iolani homecoming game on its school field Friday, while UH is having such a hard time getting permission for some of its student-athletes’ family members to attend their games.

UH is also a state institution, and like the OIA it has to play by the rules of the state Department of Health. The DOH has again advised the governor and mayor that UH should not allow spectators at its home games yet, even if they are vaccinated, wearing masks and socially distanced.

That means an empty stadium again this Saturday at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex — empty, that is, except for a few hundred people including the teams and people working at the game … and, if nothing has changed since the last home game, the UH marching band, this time to put on a homecoming show for 9,000 empty seats.

UH is in a strange, unique spot partly because while it is a state educational institution, its football games are considered commercial ventures. That’s why the band is allowed, but paying fans are not.

UH also suffers in this situation because of its high profile. There are still all kinds of “gatherings,” to use the mandate language, of more than 10 people indoors or 25 outdoors all over Oahu, the island known as The Gathering Place, every day. Most of them are just not known of, or they are not in violation of the confusing rules.

One of the many things that seem nonsensical is that a volleyball match requires more than 10 people on the court to play, and a football game, including officials, has more than 25 on the field every play. Fortunately, this has been deemed acceptable, and the games go on.

That does lead to this question: Why can there not be a few separate, well-spaced pods of 10 spectators (socially distanced even among themselves, vaccinated and masked, of course) in a 10,000-seat arena or of 25 in separate sections of a 9,000-seat outdoor football stadium?

This next fact has been written often in recent weeks, but is so stunning it bears repeating: UH is the only of 130 FBS college football programs in the nation with no spectators allowed at its home games.

Challenges like this are a little easier to take when your competition has to deal with similar issues. That was how it was last year. But now all of the factors that led to where we are now have UH sports trudging uphill on a very uneven playing field.