It was not the lopsided score on the Aloha Stadium video board that should have most concerned University of Hawaii athletic director David Matlin on Saturday night.
More ominous than the absence of points for the Rainbow Warriors, who were thumped 58-7 by the Air Force Academy, and more threatening than the lack of victories in a six-game losing streak were row upon row of empty seats.
A gathering — it would be hard to say "crowd" — of 15,118 rattled around in the suddenly cavernous 50,000-seat facility.
The smallest turnout for a UH home game in Aloha Stadium since 1976 was so meager that when the roaming "Kiss Cam" video found a couple it was usually against a backdrop devoid of other people.
Cheerleaders hoisted placards with "Noise" written on them, but the decibels, even in the rare instances when there was something to cheer about, were scant.
The joke was that on Halloween night fans came dressed as empty seats, but it provoked few laughs among those disturbed over how far and how fast the once-proud program has fallen.
Sadly, in a place where cheers once spread like thunder through the Halawa Valley and even an appearance by Abilene Christian drew 45,000, not only is the excitement gone, so too are the paying customers.
These days they vote on the program by their absence. For as telling as the 15,118 who found their way through the turnstiles was that 7,312 chose not to use their tickets, some of them freebies or sponsor tickets.
And you can’t blame it all on Halloween. It used to be that only a monsoon-like downpour could keep people away like that.
About the best thing you can say about attending a UH game these days is that there is no traffic to battle. No problem finding a parking space. Concession lines are infrequent.
So, as Matlin sets about hiring a new coach — it has long been more a matter of when than if — it is nice to dream of sellouts again.
Even if it has been more than 50 games since the last one. But what he requires right away is somebody to halt the growing lack of interest, someone to staunch the torrent of red ink.
In short, somebody to give fans — past, present and future — a reason or at least the curiosity to come back after what now stands as five consecutive losing seasons.
Bowling Green’s Dino Babers? June Jones, still UH’s winningest coach? Passionate Rich Miano? Up-and-coming Nick Rolovich? Past runner-up Dirk Koetter? A mystery entrant, or three?
UH needs the next coach to win games, of course, but it also needs somebody to lure people back into the seats before the program becomes an anachronism.
Season-ticket sales have tumbled more than 25 percent in Norm Chow’s four years to 15,007 and are down 46 percent in seven years. Meanwhile ticket revenue has plunged from $4.8 million to, maybe, $2 million this year.
Football, when you take in all the revenue streams it feeds, still pays for itself and some non-income sports as well. Just a lot fewer than before and maybe not for much longer at the current rate.
At 2-7 (0-5 in the Mountain West Conference), be assured the remaining home games — Fresno State (2-6), San Jose State (4-4) and Louisiana-Monroe (1-7) will attract sewing-circle-sized turnouts.
Fact is they might as well let the Swap Meet go ahead and resume on football Saturdays because there will be plenty of room for everybody. But UH is resigned to what it faces this year. The overriding concern is the future.
In the third quarter Matlin, seemingly alone with his thoughts, sat quietly at a table in a room in the south end of Aloha Stadium and tried to force a smile.
A penny for Matlin’s thoughts?
Try a few million bucks. For Saturday night’s empty seats reminded that there is a lot riding on his choice of the next coach.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
