Great minds think alike.
HOUSTON — John Fonoti arrived this afternoon after a hectic travel schedule.
He was removed from the 64-player travel roster last week because he had to finish incomplete school work.
There is no limit on the travel roster for this week's non-conference game against UNLV. Fonoti was added to the travel roster yesterday, and he left Honolulu last night. He arrived in Houston at 12:30 p.m. He missed practice but was able to attend meetings and, more importantly, study hall.
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June Jones agreed with one of our readers that it would be wonderful for the fans to perform the haka.
His version of the idea is to attach a wireless microphone to Timo Paepule, the Warriors' haka leader. As Paepule yells the chant, the words would appear on the Aloha Stadium JumboTron. He said 35,000 people performng the haka "would be awesome."
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On this morning's Mountain West teleconference, UNLV's Mike Sanford said he was well aware of the haka controversy. He said this week's game will be officiated by a WAC crew, and that UNLV will seek an interpretation in advance on what will be allowed.
He also said his team performed the haka two years ago, but it was scrapped because some players were not as enthusiastic as others.
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Remember Jim Cochran, UH's former recruiting coordinator/assistant coach under Bob Wagner? (By the way, what a great idea by Wagner to have a full-time recruiting coordinator.)
Cochran is now one of two national college scouts for the J-E-T-S ... Jets! Jets! Jets! (Sorry, got carried away there.) He spent yesterday watching practice and studying videotapes. He said everybody is impressed with Colt Brennan, and that Jason Rivers, Hercules Satele, Michael Lafaele, Karl Noa, Amani Purcell and Jacob Patek also are drawing strong interest.
Scouts are not supposed to be checking out underclassmen, but "hypothetically" Adam Leonard, Davone Bess and Ryan Grice-Mullins have been impressive.
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Jason is our youngest regular poster, yet one of our wisest and most mature.
His vocabulary is a mix of biting wit and kind words.
Most of all, he is our student rep, the voice — and a clear one, at that — of Every Fan.
And he's a very good singer, too.
Please meet Jason:
Aloha k?kou,
One of the hardest things you can ask a person to do is write about himself, so hopefully this sounds coherent. My name is Jason, although my friends and family also call me Jase. I am a 20-year-old mathematics major taking classes at the University of Hawai‘i at M?noa. I'm not good at any of the traditional sports like football or baseball, so when I was in high school (Moanalua class of 2005!), I was, of course, a mathlete. Don't knock it until you've tried it; competing in O‘ahu Mathematics League and Hawai‘i State Math Bowl competitions allowed me to get those competitive juices flowing and learn things like responsibility, leadership, time management, and being a member of a team, just like any athlete participating in a more physical sport. I'm looking into teaching high school math in the future, and if possible, I'd love to follow in the footsteps of those that came before me, and become a coach myself.
My Dad passed away two years ago, so it's just me and my Mom here in our Salt Lake apartment; I also have a sister, who lives in Mililani with her husband and three girls. The only other thing about my personal life that you really need to know about is the journey that led me back to God. I grew up in a Christian family, but my Dad stopped attending sometime in the 1990s because of bad health; that gave me the perfect excuse to stay home to be with him (and to watch football on television as well). For about ten years, even after my Dad died, I refused to go back, but then something happened last year that made me return.
My youngest niece was born on the afternoon of June 6, 2006; at 2:00 in the morning that day, though, I was sitting in the lobby of Kaiser Permanente's emergency room. I woke up in the middle of the night with sore legs, since I had spent the night before with friends walking around Waik?k?. I took a pain reliever, then tried to go back to sleep—only I couldn't. I started to feel cold, and I couldn't stop shaking. My heart started beating out of my chest, and it felt like it couldn't go any faster without exploding. All I could think was that I was dying. They never did see me at the ER since they were busy that night, but that event still bothered me quite a bit. Over the next few weeks, I made several trips to the emergency room as these symptoms came back, but every time the EKGs and the X-rays came back negative for anything noteworthy. I was eventually diagnosed with panic disorder, which is a type of anxiety disorder.
More importantly was one visit to the ER that was memorable. It was the night following Father's Day; that morning, my Mom tried to wake me up early so she could take me to church, but I refused because I wanted to sleep in. That night at the ER, while talking to her on the phone (she was working late), she told me, "It's because you didn't go to church this morning!" And all of a sudden, I felt it in my heart—the undeniable truth that she was right. We found a church with a sign outside that advertised Wednesday prayer services, which we attended. I've been a member of the Honolulu Bible Fellowship ever since, and a happy one at that. I can't explain to you all how much God has meant to my life in this past year. I'm not a perfect person, but I am a growing person, and that might be the best testimony any person can have.
If you're in the Salt Lake area and you want a church to attend on Sundays or Wednesdays, you're welcome to join me and the HBF. We're a small, predominantly Filipino congregation (we all speak English!) that rents a few small rooms from the good people of the First Southern Baptist Church of Pearl Harbor (http://www.fsbcph.org/). Feel free to stop in on Sunday mornings at 9:00, Sunday evenings at 6:30, and Wednesday evenings at 7:00; just look for the door with the "Honolulu Bible Fellowship" sign next to it (near the handicap parking stall, which you'll see as soon as you enter the driveway).
Now, on to the topic of UH sports, which is why we're all here today. My earliest memories as a young fan include A.C. and Alika leading the basketball team over #2 Kansas in the Rainbow Classic, Jamie Aloy playing first base and pitching for the baseball 'Bows, and Jeff Ulbrich coming back from injury to play the season finale against Michigan. My first UH football game was the 1999 O‘ahu Bowl with my Dad, with free tickets I won for good grades or something. I was there to see Tim Chang break Ty Detmer's all-time passing yardage record (I remember it was a rainy night; my sister and her friend stole my jacket!), and I've been to every football home game since becoming a student at UH (except for this year's season opener against Northern Colorado—my sister's friend, the jacket thief, she got married that afternoon).
It's been a great blessing to have met many of you this past year, my fellow members of The Warrior Beat ‘ohana. I hope my Warrior Beat Web site (http://www.deep-mirrors.org/jason/tsai/) has been of use to many of you. Please be sure to check it out sometimes; I try to put some useful information up there.
Hawai'i's Newspaper Online 
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
