Tuioti Hired, Colt Meets Josh, Florida, Etc.

Stephen Tsai writes about the now-official hiring of Tony Tuioti to be the Warriors' director of player personnel.

His duties include serving as a coordinator for academics and recruiting.

"I'm grateful for the opportunity to work with coach Mack and the other coaches," Tuioti said. "They're great guys."

Tuioti will be assuming a non-coaching position. With the demands of the NCAA's Academic Progress Report, which penalizes schools for failing to meet minimum scores, McMackin wanted a person to oversee the Warriors' classroom performances.

Congrats to Tony!

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Michael Tsai writes about Colt Brennan meeting 5-year-old Joshua Miyazawa and his family in Washington DC. Miyazawa recently had open-heart surgery.

"Colt is even nicer than we had imagined," said Joshua's father, Jeff. "He always came across as a humble guy, but watching him with Josh, he was like just one of the boys."

"They're a fun family," Brennan said. "It was a great experience. It was a privilege for me to meet him. It was awesome to hear his story."

Jason Kaneshiro talks to Colt about his new contract, his healthy hip and how things are looking up.

"I'm more so glad that I got cleared medically and I'm allowed to go out there on Sunday and start working out a hundred percent," the former Hawaii and current Washington Redskins quarterback said yesterday in a phone interview. "I've got nothing holding me back and I got my contract done, and I'm just glad to get back in the swing of things."

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Ferd Lewis writes about the 4-touchdown point spread UH faces against Florida.

On Sportshawaii.com, CoachKen has a good analysis of what UH can expect when they face the Gators in the Swamp.

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The deadline for season ticket holders to purchase the discounted road PPV package has been extended to August 1.

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Here's an update on former UH receiver Eric Shaffer, who is considering transferring to Arkansas, Ole Miss or Missouri State

Shaffer said being away from his family was the main reason for him leaving the Warriors'program, not that Coach June Jones left for SMU.

"I have three younger brothers, and I wasn't able to see them but once or twice a year with airfare traveling back and forth,"Shaffer said. "They had a great coaching staff out there and a great offense and great players, but it was too hard being away from my family."

Best of luck to him.

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Remember that time when UH decided to not take the full allotment of Sugar Bowl tickets because they didn't think they could sell them all, only to find out that they had grossly underestimated actual demand for the tickets, so they had to scramble to find tickets from various other sources but by then it was too late? Well, it might've cost UH $129,375.

The Athletic Department originally underestimated demand for the game and agreed to accept only 13,500 of its initial allotment of 17,500 tickets. The remaining 4,000 tickets were offered to University of Georgia fans.

Hawaii eventually secured another 1,866 tickets from the Sugar Bowl and other sources to accommodate fans left empty-handed. But Clapp acknowledged that the extra tickets might have come too late in the game for fans to travel to New Orleans during the busy holiday season.

In all, 1,035 leftover tickets to the Bowl Championship Series game cost the university $129,375, or $125 each, UH associate athletic director Carl Clapp said yesterday.

For $%&* sake. That's just brutal. But to put things in perspective, not nearly as brutal as Bert and Ernie banging out some blast beats.