LAS VEGAS >> Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez stressed the continued good health of the conference depends largely on all members investing in their sports programs.
“In a healthy league, all boats rise with the tide,”
Nevarez told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Everyone is going to be somewhere in the spectrum. … The most important thing is when you have teams at the top compete against teams that are either in a rebuilding stage or maybe not investing as much, that has a negative impact. You don’t want the bottom of your league to negatively impact the top. That creates factions, distrust, and the folks at the top wanting maybe to leave. It’s very important for us to continue to move everyone up the spectrum.”
As a football-only member, the University of Hawaii is considered in the bottom tier of facilities. The on-campus Ching Complex, the Rainbow Warriors’ temporary home venue, has a seating capacity of 15,300 — smallest among the Mountain West’s 12 football programs. Aloha Stadium, which served as the Warriors’ home venue for more than 40 years, was self-condemned for spectator-attended events in December 2020.
If a deal with a developer can be finalized next year, Aloha Stadium will be razed and an replacement built in time for the 2028 football season. If not, UH probably would need to build a new facility on campus.
“It is very important to keep up with not the Joneses, because we’re never going to beat the autonomous four (conferences), but definitely needing to keep up in infrastructure investment and facilities with our league and peers,” Nevarez said. “I think that is a theme and a priority for our Board for any school in the league. You don’t want a soft bottom (tier) in a competitive environment.”
The Mountain West is expected to extend its scheduling arrangement with Oregon State and Washington State, the two holdovers when 10 schools departed the Pac-12. The Mountain West decreased each football team’s schedule to seven league games to play OSU or WSU this season. Nevarez said the Mountain West is viable with its current 12-team membership for football.
“When this whole conference realignment started, I thought because of the size of the other leagues, that we could stand to get bigger,” Nevarez said. “But today, right now — and again, this could change in a week, a month, whatever — depending on the environment, we’re really good. We have a really great number. We have really great depth. … I mean, we’re really looking good. We’re always open to things that make us stronger. But I’m really happy where we are right now.”
But Nevarez said, based on her observation, UH probably would be better with the Warriors remaining in the MW and the other UH sports staying in the Big West.
“Right now, you fly into one geographic region (California), play all your games, and fly back out,” Nevarez said of the Big West’s 11 California schools. “I don’t see how it makes sense to fly to Boise and Laramie and Albuquerque (for MW games) when you have such a great deal with the rest of your sports. I can’t speak on behalf of Hawaii, from the outside it doesn’t seem to make sense (to move all sports to MW).”
