Teacher’s strike would send athletes to showers

Jason Gallic – Opinions in Paradise

Our island is surely teeming with excited youngsters this week. According to my information, we’re just 16 days from an unscheduled spring vacation.

A teacher’s strike; an interruption of routine that will send 263 public school instructors and approximately 10,636 kids scrambling for an alternative way to spend their days. The dilemma as we approach the day of walkout appears substantiated: Hawai’i’s teachers were making just $900 over the national average in 1996-97. Factor in the Aloha State’s various cost-of-living handicaps, and the wage becomes more paltry.

Teachers now want a 22 percent boost; the state would rather give them nine. There’s the impasse in a nutshell.

But I can also safely say that there are more than a few students who would rather see teachers continue to walk into classrooms than off campuses.

Kaua’i Interscholastic Federation athletes have busted their humps in preparation for spring sports. Some, like tennis and golf, are already engaged in competition. Others, such as girls’ basketball, baseball and track, are feeling the butterflies of a season ready to commence in the final days of March.

When the inevitable strike hits like a tsunami on April 5, all KIF activity will cease, dry up like a water well in the desert.

If the state and its teachers bridge the Waimea Canyon-sized gap quickly, athletic activity may be salvaged. Should parties become mired in stubbornness, the KIF may have to R.I.P.

Believe me, I understand the principles involved — I’m a journalist, for crying out loud, making journalist dollars. But that doesn’t impede the angst I’ll feel for the high schoolers who stand to be forbidden from competing in their chosen sports.

At the very best, it appears spring season will be abbreviated, perhaps to the point where the best team may not have the ability to gel and discover its full potential. That’s disheartening, because both baseball and girls’ basketball have the potential to dazzle in their search for a KIF champion.

Last year, Kapa’a won the KIF baseball championship for the first time in 12 years. With only three teams vying for the title, that’s an eye-opening length of time. But the Warriors rallied together and earned a crown.

It would be a shame not to watch them attempt a repeat. Perhaps even more discouraging would be the inability to watch Mark Rodrigues and Kaua’i try and take back the automatic berth to the state championship.

Rodrigues is a senior, and one of the more talented athletes on the island. His wicked killing ability turned many heads at the state volleyball competition in November. Enough of the right heads, in fact, that he was named to the all-tournament team. But with his 6-3, 200-pound frame, he might rather play baseball. His fastball goes in the low- to mid-80s, and he ended Kapa’a’s Ron Martin Tournament 9-of-11 from the plate.

Scouts are watching him, but we may not be able to.

Rachel Kyono is also an athlete at Kaua’i. Not only that, but the senior could join just about any foursome on the island and win hole after hole of friendly wagers. Kyono is one of the best young golfers in the state.

She’s already signed a scholarship to hit the links as a member of the Pepperdine University golf team. In July of 2000, Kyono battled her way to the third round of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship in North Carolina. Then, in August of last year, she won Hawaii State Women’s Golf Association Stroke Play Championship on Oahu.

As things stand now, she’s going to miss the meat of her KIF season. And I’ll miss the joy in trailing her around the course one Saturday, marveling at another fairway hit or bunker avoided.

I understand what the teachers are doing, I really do. In their shoes, I too may be thrusting picket signs above my head, and counseling passing cars to support our efforts. But I’m also a sports fan and an advocate for kids. There are seniors out there who wouldn’t enjoy a proper send-off to their athletic careers.

Is that the most important thing going on here? Perhaps not. But it is a thing.

Sports editor Jason Gallic at 245-3681 or mailto:kauaisports@pulitzer.net