By Paul Honda
phonda@starbulletin.com

When a team rolls over an opponent, then turns around, rolls over them again, and continuously until the game is a 74-6 rout or a 69-0 embarrassment, what is the point?

Is it the ideal scenario of competition we want for high school football? It's a problem that led to classification in ILH football several years back when Damien threatened to pull out of the league after decades of being beat up by the powerhouses.

But what if classification isn't the answer. When Kalaheo pummeled Kalani in a nonconference game 74-6 a few weeks ago, it wasn't really a matchup of David and Goliath. Kalaheo had been in the OIA White Conference with Kalani the last two season before being promoted to the Red this year. The Mustangs diligently trained in the off-season. Confidence and expectations are up under new coach Chris Mellor.

Kalani has numbers for a change, far more than 21 (Anuenue) or 26 (Kaimuki). But the results have been tough to swallow for the Falcons, who have scored 12 points in four games. They show up to work hard every day, which is a positive sign, and they don't lack for desire. But if they take too many more shellackings, it's a matter of time before we have to wonder, what will it take?

At Ka‘u, the situation is different. Oh, the Trojans are being basted and wasted as much as anyone. The 69-0 loss at Kealakehe wasn't necessary, but how much it has to do with the fact that Ka‘u simply has a tiny program that has stayed alive strictly on pride and perseverance. If there were Division III football, Ka‘u surely would belong there.

The problem is, the Trojans' true peers on the gridiron are schools like Pahoa and Laupahoehoe. These schools are in dying communities where youth programs are scant and coaching is at a minimum, but offer the kids a chance to play other tiny schools, and it's a real possibility that there is much to be gained. Bobby Command of West Hawaii Today proposed 8-man football for the BIIF's mighty-mite programs long ago. I believe it would be feasible for Ka‘u, Pahoa, Laupahoehoe, and even other small schools like Makua Lani, Parker and Haili Christian.

The MIL considered an 8-man proposal a couple of years ago, but the small schools shot it down. Nobody wants to be associated with something "smaller," I suppose, and that was the case with Kaahumanu Hou, which disdained the concept. Since then, the school has ceased to field a football team, and there are very few players from the school who are in the Pac-3 program.

So what gives? There's no real reason why the tiny schools can't enjoy the game of football, but there is a daunting challenge: travel costs. On the Big Island, renting a bus is a killer budget item. That's where talk is worth pennies and reality sets in. Impossible, no, but certainly challenging.

I say this not to patronize Ka‘u, a school I have visited and covered many times in the past. I say this because we all want a level playing field in sports, and when it is so obviously lopsided, someone needs to right the ship. Please. Before it sinks.

Extra point: There was an exception to Ka‘u's struggles not so long ago. In the mid-1990s, Greg Pollard became head coach of the Trojans, and within two years, the team went from doormat to respectable. His team went 2-8 in his first year, but the talent and potential began to surface.

By Year 2, the Trojans were a force among the small schools for the first time since the 1950s, when the sugar plantation community had numbers and talent to spare. Pollard's team went 4-6, which sounds like nothing much on the surface. However, take away the three losses to the league's powerhouses, and Ka‘u was 4-3 against small schools, i.e. teams that would be defined today as Division II.

Pollard was a wiry, highly optimistic man in his 30s, a dude whose love for the game and community were infectious. Here was a haole guy with a definite Midwestern accent, not an ounce of Hawaiian blood in his veins. Yet, he struck a chord with the community, the kids, the parents. They saw that he was for real. The dedication caught on. He made the 148-mile round trip from Kona to Pahala daily, and that took a tremendous toll after two years. His family began to grow, and he had to step down from the helm and tend to his young children. He and his family later moved to Maui, and the Trojans program has never been the same since.

It wouldn't be fair or realistic to expect a Greg Pollard to show up today and turn the program around. The fact the program exists is a remarkable feat. Look at Pahoa and other small schools that can't even muster a JV program. It's a different world on the Big Island, where most areas are quite rural and organizing talent — players and coaches — require steely determination and resolve.

Football is so unlike other sports, where you can get by with six, seven, eight kids. The Ka‘u community has shot down proposals to create jobs for the younger generation, from resorts to space centers. The growth just isn't there, and most kids move out of the area once they're old enough. Brain drain, really.

Should there be a solution to the football program's situation? Probably, but what will more likely happen is the same scenario that takes place in the wild. It's survival of the fittest, and the weak will wander off and perish. I hope this isn't the case for the Trojans, and it takes some creativity, I hope the brighter minds of the BIIF step up.

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