Unca Dave's story about the great Northwest Airlines rescue of the Far East Boys Basketball Tournaments in 1986
Published: September 27, 2008
*donning my best Fred Rogers cardigan, sitting back in my easy chair, smiling for the camera*
Well, Mr. Hokkaido Milk asked me to tell a story aboutthe great Northwest Airlines rescue of the Far East Boys Basketball Tournaments in 1986. So here we go, boys and girls and SportsBlog campers:
Once upon a time, there was a Far East High School Boys Basketball Tournament scheduled for February 1986 at Yokota High School. It was to be a competitive tournament, featuring 16 of the finest American and international high school teams from around the Pacific. And their cheerleading counterparts as well. A good time was expected to be had by all.
But along came three men known in public circles as United States senators with an idea to cut federal spending, which had caused the greatest budget deficit (at that time) in history. Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas, Ernest Holling, a South Carolina Democrat, and Warren Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire, proposed legislation that called for deep budget cuts, including $10 million from DODDS-Pacific's coffers.
Naturally, the first thing to go was the high school activities budget. And the first tournament to hit the cutting room floor was the Far East Boys Basketball.
Many were saddened by this development, the second time the basketball tournament had been sacrificed in the name of budget cuts in five years.
Then a young sports writer named Dave Ornauer decided he was going to do something about it. He could not get DODDS to change its mind, but he did for the next several days write columns decrying the cancellation of the tournament and how it robbed student-athletes of the true high school experience.
One Saturday two weeks before the Far East Tournament, the phone rang in Dave's office. The voice at the other end said, "What can we do to save the tournament?" It was Bill Glaza, an official with Northwest Airlines, which proposed to pay for the DODDS teams' air passage to Tokyo for the Far East Tournament, thereby defraying transportation cost.
DODDS accepted the offer, the tournament went on as scheduled, and to this day, those who participated say they're thankful that Northwest stepped up when it did.
Wasn't that a good story? Thank you, Hokkaido Milk, for reminding me to tell it.
