By Paul Honda
paul@hondareport.com
Thursday, Apr. 26, 2007

Before I offer you my thoughts about the likely switch of girls basketball season from the spring to the fall, let me preface.

• I have coached youth basketball, JV basketball, girls, boys. This began when I was 16, which was a long, long time ago, not long after Jimmy Carter left the White House.

• I've also officiated youth hoops. I've helped at clinics. I've run basketball leagues and tournaments for grown-ups.

• I've covered high school sports for 17 years, all in Hawaii.

Winter season is, by far, the busiest time for athletic programs in Hawaii. Between girls and boys soccer, boys basketball, girls and boys wrestling, swimming and diving, and softball, there is barely enough time in the day for an athletic director.

It's also busy at the Star-Bulletin, where we try to squeeze in as many prep sports as possible in a limited amount of space. UH, after all, is still king.

That's why, when the HHSAA meets this morning, I will be disappointed, but not surprised, when girls basketball moves to the winter. Hawaii is the last state in the union to have girls hoops still in the spring, and if the HHSAA doesn't fall in line with the rest of the country, lawsuits will undoubtedly spring up.

Lawyer bills aren't included in the HHSAA budget.

It's a shame, though. On the surface, it seems to make sense. Let the girls play at the same time as the boys. Why not? Aren't they supposed to be equal?

Well, of course. But given the busy nature of the winter season, from my own self-admitted selfish point of view, I'd much rather see girls basketball in the spring, where the only other competition for media coverage come from baseball, track and field, water polo, golf and judo.

In fact, I get to cover so much girls basketball that it benefits both the local hoopsters and myself. It's one reason why I can learn as much as possible about these players and teams. I can focus in more, far more than I ever would in the winter. Girls basketball has the nights to its collective self in the spring, drawing much more media attention that it will ever get in the winter.

The argument for moving girls basketball to the winter doesn't carry weight in the eyes of college recruiters. College coaches are busy with their teams in the winter, and if they see a prominent Hawaii girls hoopster, it is at one of the mainland tournaments, usually in Las Vegas and/or Oregon.

Two-time state player of the year Shawna-Lei Kuehu of Punahou was a blip on the radar until she went to play in Oregon with her team from Kalakaua. From there, she was picked up by the California Storm to play in Nike Elite tournaments in Chicago and down South. That put her on the map, and national recruiting sites bumped her up into the Top 15 of the Class of 2008.

It had nothing to do with the seasons of Hawaii athletics.

When the move is made, it's also likely that softball will switch out to the spring, which makes sense, as well. However, softball players are in the same loop as hoopsters. The softball standouts who get recruited are almost always the ones who play in summer tournaments on the mainland.

Exposure to mainland college coaches has nothing to do with the time of year the sport is played in Hawaii. And now, squeezing girls basketball into a menu of winter sports will not help, but hurt local media coverage.

It's heart-wrenching for me because basketball has always been in my blood. I am a devotee of both boys and girls hoops without apology or excuse. I love the girls game because of great fundamentals, great attitudes and a team-first mentality that is sometimes sorely lacking among the boys.

I guess there's no choice now, though, but to prepare in advance for a shortage of girls basketball devotion when the next season arrives.

Blessings to those of you who fight so hard for Title IX. I know your intentions are good. Title IX has reshaped the sports landscape for the good — not without casualty, but for the development of women's athletics. I can't imagine a world without girls sports at the high school level.

But the new issues will be real. I won't even go into details the problems coaches will face, particularly those who coach both boys and girls basketball. I won't try to find a solution for athletic directors who have only one gym for four basketball teams (varsity and JV, boys and girls). They'll have to explain to parents that some kids will simply have to practice later and get less coaching time because no school wants to keep kids on campus past 6 p.m., really.

With Division I and II for both girls and boys basketball, and including JV squads, bus rentals couple go through the roof four-fold, even five- or six-fold. Who's paying for that?

As a mere peasant in the whole process, I have no real voice, no real effect. I can't stop the Supreme Court rulings or lawsuits. I just hate to see the kids get tossed around. I hardly think they're going to like it, either, no matter what justification is offered to them.

They'll realize that in the grown-up world, kids often are considered last. They'll adjust to the switch and we'll all pretend that everybody's happy once winter arrives. We'll lose perfectly good coaches who have to choose between their boys and girls teams. We'll see the effects of lack of practice time.

Can girls basketball carve out its niche in the winter? Of course. Fans will still be there. I'll be there as much as humanly possible. Even TV might embrace the concept of girls/boys doubleheader games. But at what cost? Will soccer be neglected? Wrestling? Will JV basketball games be split from varsity contests? That will double every school's bus rental budget. Who pays for that? Do you like the notion of paying more taxes because we are concerned about being in line with the rest of a nation paranoid about litigation?

Coverage? There is only so much space in the a newspaper, only so much air time on TV. Media will always work with what they're given, but basketball is a better draw than softball in terms of attendance, and pairing girls with boys will decrease revenue rather than maximize it.

As long as there is an actual switch — softball to the spring as girls basketball moves to the winter — it will be workable. Not ideal, but it'll have a real chance to function.

If all winter sports remain in the winter and girls basketball is added, I would not want to be around when ADs and coaches get together and try to make sense of it all. I'm quite sure the proponents of a switch won't be around to handle the budgetary stress.

At the very least, I'd like to see some effective solutions to these new problems, and they should come from the folks who pushed to change seasons.

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