What They Need on the Islands Is a Throwin’ Alohan

Football in Hawaii. What a marvelous concept! It’s a natural. Promoting a big-time college football bowl game in Hawaii is a stroke of genius, like promoting a Tina Turner concert at Leisure World.

USC and Alabama will meet this afternoon in the Aloha Bowl, a game that will decide the nation’s No. 1 college football team currently vacationing in the South Pacific.

This city is pretty darn excited about the game. Since I’ve been here, everywhere I go I hear people saying: “Aloha.”

There will only be about 20,000 empty seats in the 50,000-capacity Aloha Bowl when the Trojans and Tide tee it up.

Why the apathy?

Maybe it’s the teams. The Tide is ranked well out of the Top 10 on all the national polls, and the Trojans barely made the Top 10 in their own conference.

The coaches are trying hard to build interest in the ballgame. For example, USC’s Ted Tollner said: “Alabama could easily have been playing for the national championship this year.”

Well sure. USC could have been, too, if you just take away about four of their losses.

Still, the Aloha Bowl promoters were hoping to drum up a little more excitement for this one than they have.

But the truth is, big-time football is aesthetically at odds with Hawaii. Aggression, tension and wearing a lot of bulky clothing seem at odds with the general laid-back feeling here.

The game promoters, no doubt, were hoping that the similarities between football and the original Polynesian culture of the Islands would turn this into a nostalgia bowl and win over the local fans.

According to my guidebook, the original inhabitants of the islands, the Polynesians, “were an imaginative people, and tales of gods, demons and supernatural events permeate their lore.” Just like football.

There are other parallels between the Polynesian Hawaiians and football players.

“The Polynesians never developed a written language,” the guidebook says.

Also: “Time was measured by generations, and the length of reigns of chiefs, instead of years.”

Strikingly similar to college football. At USC, for instance, native Trojans still talk of the reign of King John McKayakaya.

Also, size and bulk was prized among the early Islanders. It wasn’t unusual for a king to weigh between 300 and 400 pounds, and that was before the invention of steroids or Lawry’s Beef Bowl.

But despite these amazing similarities between early Island life and current big-time football, the Aloha Bowl isn’t exactly a roaring success here.

It will undoubtedly be of greater interest to the TV viewing audiences back in L.A. and Tuscaloosa. In order to enhance your viewing enjoyment, there are a few things you might like to know about the history and culture of the Islands:

--Hawaii is actually several islands, formed millions of years ago by volcanic action. Many craters are still active, and violent eruptions are common. In fact, when you make your travel plans to Hawaii, you will be asked to specify if you prefer a smoking or non-smoking island.

--The native Hawaiian language seems complicated at first, but is quite simple. It was developed using a couple of basic rules. One, when inventing a new word, if you like the sound of a syllable, you use it two or three more times in the same word.

But there is no language barrier here. Just about everyone in Hawaii speaks fluent English. However, I don’t know how the Hawaiians are going to communicate with the visitors from Alabama.

Some important dates in Hawaiian history are: 1778--English Explorer James Cook accidentally discovers Hawaii; 1802--King Kamehameha consolidates the islands under one rule; 1982--The first Wendy’s hamburger franchise is established on the Waikiki beachfront.

Modern Hawaii is really a blend of the old and the new. In Waikiki, this means a blend of high-rise hotels built before 1980 and after 1980.

But the ancient ways apparently can coexist wonderfully with more modern ways. Witness a book I spotted in a downtown Waikiki gift shop, titled, “Island Microwave Cooking.”

Football, too, has become a part of modern Hawaii. The low attendance for today’s game aside, football is the state’s No. 2 sport. The No. 1 sport is betting on football.

The problem with the Aloha Bowl seems to be that the city is overbowled. There is the Pro Bowl, the Hula Bowl and the Aloha Bowl.

The Pro Bowl is an NFL All-Star game, the Aloha Bowl is a game between two top collegiate teams, and the Hula Bowl is what you take to a luau to put your Hawaiian Punch in.

I know it gets a little confusing, this crossing of cultures. But tune in late this afternoon and it will all make sense.

Right now, from high atop my hotel balcony, I can see the surfers and canoeists riding the waves in the bay and the sunbathers cooking beneath the swaying palms.

There’s nothing I would rather do right now than hustle over to the conference room for Alabama Coach Ray Perkins’ daily press conference, to hear some native Alabama cliches about how Ray’s kids fear and respect USC.

Aloha.