Deadspin: hawaii rainbows

Welcome To The System Quarterback Club, Colt

Leitch — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:00:38 EST

Tiny tidbits and news niblets from the OTHER bowl games yesterday ...

• It's a depressing, sad label, but it's clear Hawaii's Colt Brennan now owns it: The elite club of "system quarterback." Timmy Chang, Andre Ware, David Klingler ... the more the merrier! Georgia-USC would have been the best game, obviously; Illinois-Hawaii might have been fun too.

• The most entertaining game of the day, without question, was the Michigan-Florida game. It seems weird to see Lloyd Carr carried off the field that way, though, like he's Bear Bryant or something. Maybe if he would have coached as balls-out the rest of his Michigan career as he did yesterday, he might have won a few more bowl games.

• Big Ten check-in: 3-4 in their bowl games, with the BCS title game still coming up. Not as bad as you might have feared, but when you consider the Big Ten hasn't won a Rose Bowl in eight years now ... yipes.

• It's possible that Missouri's win yesterday won't push them up in any polls at all; they're not gonna gain on Georgia or USC, and they were already ahead of Hawaii and Illinois. They're probably a preseason top five team, by the way, and they play Illinois (probably a top 15 team) in the season opener.

• After yesterday, we will confess, our fervor for Oklahoma-West Virginia tonight is, well, minimal. We suspect this is normal.

Some End-Of-Day Love For The Rainbows

Leitch — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:05:47 EST

In the most bizarre, bewildering, ultimately disappointing — we'd much rather see Missouri vs. West Virginia in the title game than Ohio State vs. LSU; we admit it — there's only one team that has done nothing but provide unadulterated joy to its fans all season long: The Hawaii Rainbows. (Or Rainbow Warriors. Whatever.)

For fun, we like to check out this fan site, which is pretty much an explosion of mirth somehow transmitted to a Blogspot page. Everyone just looks like they're having such a good time; maybe life is better in Hawaii!

Shanoff brought this up earlier in the week, but what if Hawaii destroyed Georgia in the Sugar Bowl? It's not likely to happen, but if they did, and the BCS title game was a turgid, ugly, uninspiring affair ... couldn't you make a legitimate case for Hawaii to be the national champion? Maybe? Please? We love our potential BCS champion Rainbows.

University Of Hawaii Football Fan Blog

How to be a mascot, as told to a sports anchor....

Leitch — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:30:10 EST

How to be a mascot, as told to a sports anchor. [The Wizard of Odds]

Hawaii Loves Its Haka

Leitch — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:30:36 EDT

The Hawaii Rainbows have taken, to fire themselves up, to doing the Haka before games. The Haka is mostly famous for being the intimidating pregame ritual for the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. Now the Rainbows do it, mostly because their name is the Rainbows. But the WAC is not happy about it, and is banning the team from doing it.

The Western Athletic Conference has basically banned the Haka. They haven't come out & stated that, but last weekend's assessing the Warriors as being guilty of 'unsportsman-like behavior' - before the game even started against Louisiana Tech - amounts to the same thing.The University of Hawaii Warriors didn't even do the Haka on the field: it was performed in front of their locker area, facing a group of 200 of their supporters.

Even though the "dance" was done in the Rainbows locker room, they were assessed with a 15-yard penalty before the game, which we do not understand. But the All Blacks do it better anyway.

This Also Happens Often To Swimmers

Leitch — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:40:38 EDT

SCANDAL at the University of Hawaii! Apparently, some fella named Ian Sample, who used to play football for the Rainbows, claims coach June Jones used to manipulate drug tests. We're not sure we understand what the big deal is — if you can't get stoned playing for Hawaii, dammit, where can you get stoned? — but Sample himself has definitely grabbed our attention.

Sample's "book," which is published by Hawaii's Watermark Publishing and oddly isn't listed on Amazon, is called "Once A Warrior," and it will SHOCK YOU. Well, maybe not, if you check out the book's MySpace, but Every Day Should Be Saturday does have a rather outstanding excerpt about having sex with your helmet on.

"Freaks are out there, don't get it twisted. I had one girl who wanted me to bang her out in my uniform. Like some role-play type shit. So it was what it was. After practice I took my gear home, put it on and gave her her fantasy. Then when she was done, she wanted to switch, so she put on my helmet and we did it like that. That was a little weird for me but no reason to sweat the small stuff. Just as long as she didn't want me to pretend to be like Leonard Peters or Colt, I wasn't caring!"

You know, if this were a cheesy '80s movie, Sample would take off the helmet to reveal ... she was a she all along!

Maui Wowie Owwie For June Jones [Every Day Should Be Saturday]