The gap between University of Hawaii athletic teams and their well-heeled foes figures to grow even wider after Thursday.

By leaps and bounds, not to mention smoothie bars and bison burgers.

Barring a surprise, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors is likely to approve legislation Thursday that will allow schools to offer all their athletes — scholarship and walk-on — unlimited meals and snacks beginning Aug. 1.

The legislation is long overdue, of course, as we were reminded last month when UConn guard Shabazz Napier complained that sometimes he goes to bed "starving" because he couldn’t afford food beyond the NCAA-permitted meals.

This while the NCAA and its member institutions were reaping the hundreds of millions of dollars the NCAA Tournament produces.

Currently, only scholarship athletes may receive school-funded meals and those have been limited in number and scope, at one point right down to what could be made available to slather on a snack bagel.

This year Oklahoma felt the need to self-report three of its football players to the NCAA and order them to cough up $3.83 each for each having an extra serving of pasta at a graduation banquet.

But when the NCAA removes restrictions and it is permissible to fling open dining hall doors to all athletes all the time, it will exacerbate the growing divide between the haves and have-nots. In case you were wondering, UH falls among the latter. And it falls hard, already staggering under a projected $2 million deficit this fiscal year.

The fact that UH has even been able to offer pieces of fruit for snacks has been largely through the generosity of folks such as Armstrong Produce, a local wholesaler that has backed its truck up to the Stan Sheriff Center to unload 250 pounds of donated produce at a time.

But the prospect of subsidizing the feeding of all of its approximately 475 athletes, scholarship and walk-ons, several times a day in season and out may force UH to decide which athletes it will allow to chow down, how much and when. For example, does it feed football and Rainbow Wahine volleyball and track and field athletes year-round but others only in-season? Do all get snacks? 

We’re not talking plush appointments like Alabama’s Bryant Sports Grill; Nebraska’s deluxe carving stations; Florida, where, it is reported they pay upwards of $60,000 a year just on pre- and post-practice football snacks, or places where sushi, steak and crab legs abound. Just the nutritional basics. 

"Let’s get to the truth of the matter: We’re not generating enough revenue to be able to afford our (athletic) program right now," athletic director Ben Jay said from a national conference where ADs have been ruminating about the situation. "And, now, we’re going to be faced with this issue? Then, it is a matter of OK, what are you giving up? And, I hate to be in that position because what we give our kids is barely enough as it is," Jay said. 

Say you are an athlete being recruited by Utah and UH. If the huge differences in facilities, conference stature and TV exposure haven’t already turned your head, the dining situation sure could. In addition to an expansive athletic dining hall in the Eccles Football Center, presided over by four staff chefs and three dieticians, the Utes have a "fueling station" outside the weight room, a place to munch snacks or pour down made-to-order smoothies. And bison burgers.

Progress is finally coming to the NCAA, but as in so many things these days, can UH afford the bill?

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