June Jones, Bill, Tickets, C&K, Hercules, CB

Another reason why we love June Jones.

A group of Hawai'i business leaders and UH supporters have pledged more than $100,000 as a gesture to thank and support Jones.

Jones, in turn, said he will give the entire amount to his assistant coaches and to improving the athletic department's deteriorating facilities.

"I want the money to go where it's needed," Jones said.

Awesome. Some words from coach Jeff Reinebold:

"I think that says an awful lot about the kind of guy June is," defensive line coach Jeff Reinebold said. "That's a window into June. He's very generous to make a gesture like that."

"Everybody talks about the great job the South Florida coach did in building a program," Reinebold said. "But June resurrected a program. If the program was a patient in the hospital, they would call the priest to give the last rites. He took it off life support. He breathed life into it, and gave it an identity.

A lot more great quotes from that Stephen Tsai article, which also has news about a proposed bill by U.S. Rep Neil Abercrombie.

Insisting the Division I-A postseason format does not provide justice for all, Hawai'i Rep. Neil Abercrombie is prepared to propose a bill that would declare the Bowl Championship Series as unconstitutional and call for a playoff system.

Abercrombie said a system that limits automatic berths to six conferences "is restraint of trade. The automatic qualifiers are still taking care of themselves. I'm saying regardless of what good intentions may be behind this, it's restraint of trade. It's illegal. It's unconstitutional."

Woot woot!

The Advertiser has more on the 1,000 additional Sugar Bowl tickets UH received.

McNamara said the returned tickets "are in different sections" than the original allotment, which were located in all levels of the east and southeast corners of the stadium, closest to the UH bench.

He also was uncertain who or what groups previously held those tickets. The previous 500 tickets were set aside for corporate sponsors, community groups and others "that support their game annually," said McNamara earlier.

"I don't know where the tickets came from, our primary concern was getting our fans in the building," he said of the 72,000-seat Superdome.

Splitting up the fanbase in more ways than one. C&K are not split about it. Here's what they have to say:



C&K gonna be in NOLA! And those are some nice looking tickets.

Rosemarie Bernardo writes about the 1000 tickets, and on the same page Robert Shikina writes that grad assistant Brian Kajiyama will be going to New Orleans.

Kajiyama, who has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair, will make his first journey with the team when the No. 10 Warriors travel to New Orleans for the Allstate Sugar Bowl against No. 4 University of Georgia on Jan. 1.

Last week, Carl Clapp, associate athletic director for administrative services, offered an invitation to Kajiyama and his parents to attend the game at the Louisiana Superdome.

"Life was sweet, but just got even sweeter," wrote Kajiyama, 31, in an e-mail to the Star-Bulletin. Kajiyama, one of two graduate assistants for the team, is also a UH doctoral student in special education. To communicate, he must use a computer that turns text into speech.

Right on.

Brian McInnis writes about Hercules Satele's All-American honor.

Offensive lineman Hercules Satele was named to the Football Writers Association of America's All-American team over the weekend, when all eyes were on New York and Colt Brennan at the Heisman Trophy awards show, where the quarterback finished third.

"That's pretty awesome," Jones said when told of Satele's accolade. "That's the first I've heard of it, but he's certainly deserving. He's had a great career, and he's played very well last year and this year. Pass-protected as well as anybody in the country."

And finally, Kalani Simpson, who hasn't really left us after all, has a great story about Colt Brennan that he's saved since August.