Dave Reardon: Rumor mill often sends a wayward message

“Hey bro… this article says Chevan transferred back to Hawaii.”

That text earlier this month was from my friend James Shiroma — a former sports editor of Ka Leo, the University of Hawaii student newspaper, and an avid Warriors fan who is now head pastor at Grace Point Church.

Chevan Cordeiro is the former UH quarterback who left for San Jose State after the 2021 season.

The article was mostly about Jay Butterfield, an Oregon quarterback who announced he was transferring to San Jose State. And, yes, as Shiroma said, it included a line referring to “quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, who has transferred to Hawai’i.”

Nothing else. It was written like it was common knowledge, like “oh, by the way …”

While we did our due diligence and checked it out — on the off-chance Cordeiro really was doing a wild double-reverse — the original article was changed. The updated version mentioned Cordeiro, but nothing about him leaving San Jose State for anywhere.

His fellow former Saint Louis School star returning to Manoa was news to UH coach Timmy Chang … fake news.

“I didn’t hear that from anybody, didn’t know that was a thing,” Chang said. “The only thought I had about Chevan was that (Spartans coach Brent) Brennan was in conversation with Stanford, and it might hurt Chev if his coach leaves.”

This was a couple of weeks after someone at a restaurant asked me if D.J. Uiagalelei really was transferring to UH from Clemson.

According to some website that specializes in recruiting stuff (sorry, can’t bring myself to use the word “news” in this situation), the five-star recruit out of high school who started 28 games at Clemson was “100 percent” committed to joining the Warriors. Other online outlets repeated this, no one bothering to check with Chang. One called it “legitimate smoke.”

More like smoke and mirrors.

“I never heard from (a reporter), never talked to D.J.,” Chang said. “But we wanted to see if it was real, so we reached out.”

One of UH’s people did eventually communicate with one of Uiagalelei’s people. Turns out he’s headed for Oregon State — the rival of Oregon, where D.J.’s brother, Matayo, another five-star prospect, will be a freshman in the the fall.

The only time Chang tried to recruit D.J. Uiagalelei was in 2019, when he was an assistant coach at Nevada and Uiagalelei was a star at St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, Calif.

“I’m always open with my guys and honest,” Chang said. “I told them that I’d stick with the guys in my (quarterback) room. Sometimes all that speculation sends the wrong message. I believe in Brayden Schager the No. 1 and (Joey) Yellen and (Jake) Farrell 2 and 3. We’re pretty happy with that.”

Shiroma said he “thought that it was a possibility” that the Uiagalelei-to-Hawaii reports were credible.

“But right after signing day Timmy Chang said the quarterback room was sealed,” he said. “You hear that, and you look at the direction of the team and how they’re trying to build ohana, and it didn’t seem like they were trying to recruit another quarterback. It would have thrown off the trajectory.”

Shiroma remembered Jeremiah Masoli — who led Oregon to the Rose Bowl — was looking for a place to play in 2010 when coach Chip Kelly kicked him off the team for multiple legal problems. Hawaii was among the schools Masoli — a Saint Louis alumnus — applied to transfer to; UH coach Greg McMackin passed and Masoli went to Ole Miss.

“If you brought in Masoli, there’d be a competition,” Shiroma said. “And coach McMackin said they didn’t need another quarterback.”

McMackin was right, because he had Bryant Moniz. The former walk-on from Leilehua passed for 5,040 yards and 39 touchdowns as Hawaii went 10-4 after a losing season in 2009.

Baseball pitchers Bret Saberhagen and C.C. Sabathia combined for three Cy Young Awards and nine All-Star teams. If they hadn’t gone straight to the pros they were set for Hawaii; Sabathia even signed a letter of intent for baseball and football.

Richard Washington, described in 1973 as “the most sought-after high school basketball star in the nation,” chose UCLA over Hawaii.

Bobby Lee Hurt, another hoops prodigy, picked Alabama over Hawaii and Maryland in 1981, after a drawn-out and dramatic recruiting battle.

Even before the internet, there was always plenty of speculation about big-name athletes coming to UH that didn’t materialize for various reasons — as there was and is everywhere.

But this is by far the fastest I’ve ever seen 100 percent go to zero.

“They say any publicity is good publicity,” Chang said. “People don’t know so they speculate.”