Herman Frazier, Hawaii's athletic director, concurred. "It's Hawaii's Super Bowl," he said. "Our participation in the Sugar Bowl is going to be like Hawaii playing in a Super Bowl." Still, to speak of the Sugar Bowl as a mere football game, even a really big one, fails to capture the mood.For UGA fans looking to wrap your head around Hawaii Mania sweeping the islands, my best comparison would probably be the '91 Braves.
"For many people here," said Bobby Curran, a Honolulu sports radio announcer and longtime Hawaii follower, "this is the biggest thing to hit Hawaii since statehood." (emphasis added)
I remember most of our state staying up half the night watching the Braves west coast swings vs. the Dodgers, Giants and Padres leading up to Sid Bream's Slide. It was a white hot love affair, and everything was so new. We couldn't get enough of it, and they could do no wrong. It sounds like that to me. In other words, it's not like a state full of life long Hawaii Football fans is coming over.
According to the article linked above, their stadium seats ~50,000, and they only have 22,800 season ticket holders. Basically, their stadium is the size of Bobby Dodd, and GT has a similarly sized season ticket holder base. Hmm....I'm sure there's a shot at Tech in there somewhere.
It's more than just "This is new." It's "This couldn't be more different than what they are used to."
See Also:
-- 10 facts about Hawaii - AJC
-- Dawgs return to NOLA - DawgPost
-- Warriors on Guard - UGASports.com ($)
PWD
17 comments:
Let's just hope we can bring the house and show up! As of tonight, theres still ton of tix around and below face (600 areas) available on Stubhub and other 3rd party sites.
Incidently, anyone know the WSB discrete freq Munson will be broadcasting on ? Probably for a different thread, but one wonders if THIS will be his last game...
The Bream slide was actually in '92, when we went on to lose to Toronto in the WS. In 1991, we won the last two games in Pittsburgh to win the NLCS.
As for the Sugar Bowl, I think there will be plenty of empty seats in the upper reaches of the SuperDome. UGA and Hawaii fans will trade up for better tickets and any generic college football fan isn't going to want to sit in nose bleed seats(at a discounted, but still relatively expensive price) to see these two teams play. Those empty seats will be accentuated with all of the UGA fans wearing Black and all the Hawaii fans wearing white.
Another reason to hate Goff... From the AJC article ..
5. THE BEST HAWAII FOOTBALL PLAYER before Brennan, according to Dave Reardon of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, was a kicker from Georgia. Jason Elam of Stone Mountain finished his career at Hawaii holding every UH and WAC career place-kicking record and remains the school's all-time leading scorer. He also won two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos and tied the NFL record for longest field goal (63 yards). Elam considered transferring to UGA and was enrolled at the school for one summer. But then-coach Ray Goff told Elam he would have to walk on and beat out kicker Kanon Parkman before he'd offer a scholarship. Elam returned to Hawaii, where he finished out his collegiate caree
The 1991 Braves/2007 Hawaii analogy works fine for me, mainly because the Braves LOST the World Series that year.
Who will be Hawaii's version of Lonnie Smith?
Personally, I think at some point in the second quarter or so, the Hawaiians are going to realize two things: First, this ain't no video game, bra. Second, you ain't playing a bunch of haoulies from Washington. This HERE is the big leagues, bra. They're going to be like a bunch of rookies trying to surf Waimeia (or however you spell it. I know the Hawaiian alphabet only has 12 letters: W, L, K, and about 9 vowels). Wait til the wave crashes on you, bra. It's coming.
Did anybody watch the East Carolina / Boise State game?
East Carolina was bigger, faster, and meaner than Boise. Had their way with them the first half. Typical Holtz coaching job of taking the foot off the neck and not substituting much in the second half hurt the Pirates.
Boise played Hawaii close at the end of the season, nothing jumped out physically about differences in the teams. ECU is not par with any winning SEC team this year. The olines, dlines, and overall team speed should dominate for the Dawgs.
Another reason to hate the AJC: Elam is from Snellville, not Stone Mountain.
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Was it over when Stafford bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Citizen Crane- I hate to deepen your animosity of Goff even further, but consider that Kanon Parkman also kept the starting job over Todd Peterson, while all Peterson went on to do was fashion a decade-long career as a very solid NFL mainstay.
And have we discussed the two years Robert Edwards spent as a DB yet...?
I'll say this about Kanon.
He has the record for the worst kick to beat Georgia Tech ever. It was so ugly and it went through. thank God.
The main reason to hate Goff now: the peckerhead charges for extra sauce at Zaxbys. I just spent $7 on some chicken fingers and your not going to give me enough sauce to eat them with!? Jerk.
"Who will be Hawaii's version of Lonnie Smith?"
I will be more interested to know who will be our version of Kirby?!?!?
i hate kent hrbek.
he is a dirty cheater.
Wow a lot of mixed emotions here. F'ing Goff, Lonnie Smith, The Twins. Still a pain in my ass all these years later....
Truth be told, Lonnie really didn't play that bad, outside of that Knoblauch deke out. I'm hopin' to find out who will be their Ron Gant, David Justice, & Charlie Liebrandt. Those guys stunk it up.
The 1991 World Series would have been long over if Bobby Cox had stuck with Alejandro Pena in Game Six rather than opt to save him for Game Seven. Instead, he brought in Charlie Liebrandt who gave up the blast to Puckett.
I used to live out there when I was in the military and this is the biggest thing to hit Hawaii in a long long time. What most of you probably don't realize is that a large portion of the state lives way below the poverty line. Outside of the tourisy areas there are some really "third world" looking places. The Warriors are the closest thing they have to pro sports out there. Their HS football games are on par (crowd and intensity wise at least) with HS football in the South. I went to the HS Championship game where Kahuku finally beat St Louis (St Louis is a private school and dresses 100 at least for each game. Their typical scores are 70,80, even 100-0). It was nuts! So yes I would agree that this is their Super Bowl, and that is precisely what scares the Hell out of me.
Dawgs still win....but it might be closer than we all think or want it to be. Keep some TUMS handy while watching.
Who lead the American League batting against lefties in '91?
You guessed it. Why NOT bring in a forty-year-old lefty starter, cold, to pitch to the Greatest Twin Ever with the game on the line?
I spent 4 or 5 hundred joyful hours watching the Braves play in '91, just to have Bobby piss all over it in the end.
We still blew it in Game 7, dude. Complaining about Game 6 when you go out and blow Game 7 is so...1985 St Louis Cardinals.
In Game 7, Ron Gant hit the ball to the right side for the first and only time in his entire life...resulting in a feeble 3-1-3 double play with the bases loaded. Lonnie Smith went for a little league fake from Knoblauch that wasted Pendleton's gap double, and we couldn't eke out a single stinking run with John Smoltz pitching his guts out.
But 1991 didn't really disappoint me at all. It was an amazing season. All the others sucked after that.
Hopefully Hawai'i will feel that way at the end this year. Hey, great year, very magical. Too bad we didn't win it in the end, though.
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