In the midst of the voting process for the Star-Bulletin Girls Volleyball All-State/Fab 15 selections, it's just insane how close the totals are for the top three players. I'm not going to spill the beans, but the top three are within 2% of each other. If you really look closely, Hawaii is generating so much college volleyball talent that it's almost preposterous.

The All-State voting is deep and wide, and though this is supposedly a down year after the graduation of great talent, there will still be dozens of future college players out of this year's class.

As for football, the Punahou-Saint Louis game was just not as close as I expected. With Cayman Shutter not at 100 percent (concussion), I thought Saint Louis would win real close. Instead, Shutter and the Buffanblu played their best game of the year -- or at least their best game since the trip to Seattle.

It was almost as if we saw two different Punahou teams in the matchups with Saint Louis, especially on defense. Punahou had a conservative scheme in the 41-19 loss to Saint Louis two months ago. Gave Jeremy Higgins all the out routes he wanted, and he complied with throw after throw to Jordan Fukumoto near the sidelines.

This time, Punahou took away a lot of those options, as well as the deep ball by dropping a linebacker into coverage. The Cover 2 gave Higgins a read to throw medium and short, and unlike last time, he didn't get into a rhythm until the Crusaders were down 28-7 in the third quarter. Part of me wanted to see Saint Louis rally and put the game into overtime, but another side of me was in awe of how well Punahou was playing -- defense, offense, special teams.

A masterful performance on the field, the sidelines and, quite clearly, from upstairs, where Darryl Kan called the offense.

It's just bittersweet to see Saint Louis' fine season come to an end. I don't think the ILH should get any more berths than any other league as long as the numerical ratio applies equally. No, the ILH is and probably always will be a cannibalistic league -- a byproduct of the extremely high demands of parents who expect the highest levels of education and athletics, probably more (and worse) than anywhere else in the nation. Think about it: there are private-school leagues where academics take precedence, and leagues where athletics wins out. To have both areas covered with so little room for acceptance, and to have some of the nation's highest tuition costs ... it's a small pool filled with top-of-the-food-chain predators.

Very little room for mediocrity. This is what makes the ILH great and miserable at the same time. Talent-wise, there's no question they have more than just one or two of the state's best teams in any team sport. But the situation is something that the ILH created -- neither the KIF, the MIL, the OIA nor the BIIF demanded that the ILH take it's levels of excellence to such high places.

So I regret that Saint Louis won't play another game. But when recruiting has been a way of life in the ILH for generations, it's not realistic to expect the leagues that don't recruit to take pity on the rich -- especially when they always want to get richer (more state-title trophies).

I have nothing against recruiting, as I've written before. A lot of my former teammates and friends from my neighborhood were recruited to go play basketball in the ILH, and we ALL considered this an honor. There was a ton of talent in McCully back in the day.

But every time I think of the ILH teams that deserve to play for a state title, but just don't have a place in the ratio, I think of the greed and overbearing hunger for more, more, more that comes from those parents -- not all, but quite a few -- now and in the past.

Nobody is owed anything, of course. It's just hard to convince some people that enough is enough. People who view high school sports as a mini-version of the NCAA or NFL are rarely the same folks who have coached a long time. There's a bigger picture to this, and rewarding recruiting practices by giving any league more than its share of state-tourney berths is both ludicrous and enabling.

It's another reason why I hate the overpopulation of Hawaii. Not the people, of course, but just the overly burdened system that has most DOE (public school) administrators and teachers sending their children to private schools; a system that creates insanely high levels of competition in a place where starting prices for small houses can be $400,000; where working two jobs to secure semblance of financial security is almost a must.

It's a fact of life, and the other fact that it has spilled over into the mindset of parents who have children in high school sports ... well, that just about kills me. So if you do e-mail me with complaints about why your child hasn't been in the headlines, or why he/she deserves to be on the All-State team, or why I haven't written a story that condemns your kid's coach for not playing "everybody" as much as he should ... give me a break.

Instead of ranting to sports media, spend more time giving your child praise. Give her a hug. Give him a smile for no reason. I know times are tough and always will be on Oahu, but the best, very best things in life are still free if you remember that you do have a heart.

Spend more time enjoying every last minute with your family and less time grumbling on sports talk radio or through e-mails to the newspaper about things you cannot control. Life's too short for manini stuff and you know it.

Live.

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