Last week Aloha Stadium fielded a media call from San Diego inquiring whether the playing surface would be safe for San Diego State’s Christmas Eve appearance in the Hawaii Bowl.

Never mind that the Aztecs played on it less than two months earlier with no complaints (It sure didn’t inhibit Aztec running back Donnell Pumphrey who came into the game questionable due to a previous ankle injury and proceeded to run 30 times for 148 yards and three touchdowns).

Or that a subsequent NFL site check turned up no issues and five other colleges and a dozen high schools have also performed there in the interim without a peep.

Yet, with headlines like the San Diego Union-Tribune’s “Should Aztecs be wary of Aloha Stadium?” we are reminded there were two victims in the wake of the infamous canceled Dec. 6 U.S. vs. Trinidad and Tobago soccer exhibition, foremost the fans who never got to see it and, secondly, the facility that is still being unfairly tarred by it.

While the United States Women’s National Team’s celebration tour has gone on after the aborted event, you wonder where Aloha Stadium goes to get back its name?

Let’s be clear here: The U.S. women deserve to play on facilities equal to what the U. S. men get. If the men choose grass and the women want it, that’s what they should get. It is basic fairness and overdue.

But that’s squarely on the leadership of the U. S. Soccer organization, which booked the match, bought some sunscreen and then, apparently, jumped on a plane for a vacation.

It agreed to use a football-first facility that has long had an artificial surface, never bothering with the most basic of due diligence or considering the needs and wishes of its players.

Aloha Stadium never misrepresented what it is. It is not and never has been a built-for-soccer venue, having been conceived as a football and (once upon a time) baseball facility.

Over the years the stadium came to host soccer on occasion, including exhibitions with Pele and David Beckham and pro teams from the the MLS, Japan, Korea and Australia. Those organizations came here understanding the inherent limitations in layout and surface.

The stadium has replaced the artificial turf that is still under warranty and it is inspected by the manufacturer. But on the shoe-string of budgets doled out from successive state administrations that have given the place a low priority, it hardly has the wherewithal to replace the surface as often as it might like.

As U.S. Soccer confessed after the debacle, its organization failed to do elementary homework. It never did routine site inspections here, something the NFL, Major League Baseball, many colleges and others perform as a matter of course well before booking the place much less touching down here.

U.S. Soccer, meanwhile, said it did site inspections of nine of the 10 venues on its tour, just not this one.

So when the U.S. players determinedly chose to make a stand on equality in facilities, U. S. soccer was an easy target. And the stadium was caught in the internecine shootout.

Hopefully the U.S. women now get the equality they deserve. But where does the stadium go to get its aloha?

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.