APRIL 25, 2001: State tournaments get a glimmer of hope

19990604 SPT Keith Amemiya, incoming executive director for Hawaii High School Athletic Assoc. stands inside the Stan Sheriff Center where the state boys and girls high school basketball tournaments were played. He has the enormous task of bringing together the state prep sports programs. PHOTO BY DENNIS ODA. JUNE 4, 1999. FRAME #17A.

It might sound familiar, but on this day in 2001 the HHSAA was doing everything it could to save the state tournaments.

Executive director Keith Amemiya didn’t have to worry about a global pandemic, just a teacher’s strike that wiped nearly out a month of the spring season.

OIA executive secretary Dwight Toyama was fine with scrapping state tournaments all together and playing out his league’s season, but Amemiya was working on a plan to satisfy him.


The solution, announced the next day, limited state golf tournaments to 36 holes on a single day and dropped the baseball tournament to eight teams from its usual 12. The ILH lost one berth, the OIA lost two and the MIL lost one.


The girls basketball tournament also dropped from 12 teams to eight. Kalaheo coach Chico Furtado was one of the biggest opponents of the plan for skipping the tournaments, calling out Superintendent of School Paul LeMahieu by name.

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