LAHAINA, Hawaii — Ninety-year-old Merv Lopes, the legendary Chaminade coach who led the Silverswords to the upset of top-ranked Virginia in 1982, slowly but steadily climbed the postgame interview dais, sat down and gazed left and right at several rows of media members.
He was there Monday to reminisce about the game that spawned the Maui Jim Maui Invitational, now in its 39th year, and would later pose with some of his old players on the Lahaina Civic Center court on the first day of the prestigious eight-team tournament.
Reminisce he did in a wide-ranging conversation about facing 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson, about his old players and about being a junior high counselor. But, near the end of the session, when asked about the modern-day status of Chaminade in the tournament — the Division II Silverswords now play only in alternating years only because of a deal with ESPN to increase the strength of the field — Lopes didn’t hold back. He said the decision “breaks my heart.”
“I just feel that Chaminade should be in it, no matter what. No matter what,” Lopes said. Soon after, he got a round of applause and was helped off the stage by friends and his wife, Sheryl.
In the last three years, Chicago-based tournament runner KemperLesnik had to make other tough choices that deviated from tradition. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic effectively closed off Maui, the only site the event had ever known, in 2020 because of travel restrictions. Organizers settled on a quarantined environment all the way in Asheville, N.C., to play it, while still keeping the same Maui branding.
The island of Maui was not quite ready to fully reopen in the fall of 2021, so the game was played on the mainland again, this time in Las Vegas. The island would again miss out on an estimated 7,000 fans, team personnel and KemperLesnik employees that have infused the island with about $16 million in annual economic impact, a Hawaii Tourism Authority figure relayed by KemperLesnik.
The tournament did what it could to keep up Maui themes with imagery like lei and surfboards as teams played at Michelob Arena.
“Vegas did a great job. The Michelob Arena there was phenomenal, the MGM was awesome,” said Chaminade coach Eric Bovaird, who counts on the event as a selling point to recruits. “But it’s Las Vegas. It has a different vibe, a different feel to it. Nothing takes the place of Maui, for sure.”
The big question on local residents’ minds this year: With restrictions finally removed, would it come back? Had the tournament gotten a taste of something better since its last appearance in 2019?
“Totally (a fair question),” said Kim Ball, president of Hi-Tech Surf Sports, a Maui-based business with five locations. Before the pandemic, his was one of several businesses to distribute Maui Invitational tickets to local residents. (The tournament shifted to a digital ticketing system during the pandemic and has kept it in place, but still offers deals for locals.)
“It’s probably a heck of a lot cheaper to put on a tournament on the mainland than Maui,” Ball said. “But, it’d be kind of a joke to keep it (going) and call it Maui. Everybody in college basketball knows the Maui Invitational is, year-in and year-out, the best preseason tournament in the country … and they’ve done a great job of getting the Dukes, Kansases and North Carolinas of the world to come.”
They're still coming, to the relief for local residents who are still recovering from pandemic shutdowns. Katie Clark of Arizona made her seventh trip to Maui for the tournament since the early 1990s. This year, her travel group Bon Voyage Travel, helped place 200 Wildcat diehards on the team’s charter plane.
“They have a great time because it’s Maui and it’s a tournament with U of A,” Clark said. “So it makes it really fun. You can’t go wrong.”
Tournament director Nelson Taylor, who helped put on the event both before and during the pandemic, said his team was counting down the days until it could return.
“There was never any doubt in our mind that we were coming back to Maui,” Taylor said. “That’s why we kept the name ‘Maui Invitational’ in the field, even though it was in Asheville and Las Vegas. It was a ton of brand equity built and we wanted it to be symbolic to our ohana here on the island that we’re coming back. As soon as it’s safe for us to do so, we (hoped) they welcome us back with open arms. We’re planning to be here.”
The tournament put up “Malama Maui Nui” signage encouraging visiting fans to give back to the community and it did a beach cleanup with Lahaina Town Action Committee.
Perhaps no one could quantify the importance of the tournament’s return better than Maui resident Rod Pa‘ahana, who since 2007 has sold team-themed lei at a kiosk at the tournament to benefit his nonprofit, the Villages of Leiali‘i for nearby Hawaiian homestead lands.
Pa‘ahana makes between 300 to 600 lei in a given year. He made lei the last two years to be shipped to the tournament on the mainland.
He was grateful to have it back.
“It really is a big event for our island,” Pa‘ahana said. “We’re telling the county, please, support them. They’re such a good community group because they hire people from all throughout the community to park cars, to do different events here. It’s a good thing for the local community because they really want us to be part of it. They put a lot of people in the front lines and helps bring some income to their families.”
This week, for three straight days of games, it’s been like the tournament never left. Fans have milled about the high-end resorts of Kaanapali and historic Lahaina town, giving businesses like Ball’s a noticeable bump in traffic.
As is tradition, dueling fan bases have packed the 2,400-seat Lahaina Civic Center to the brim and chanted in unison while ESPN broadcasts the action. The beer garden outside the arena, stocked with Kona Brewing Co. and Koloa Rum, has done steady business. And there is a worthy championship matchup at noon Wednesday between No. 10 Creighton and No. 14 Arizona.
“Our three host properties — the Hyatt, the Sheraton and the Westin — they basically ran out of rooms for us,” Taylor said. “We kept adding and adding rooms for the number of people we were bringing over. Schools were excited so their travel parties were even larger than normal. So, I certainly expect the economic impact would meet, if not exceed what we saw pre-pandemic.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. Reach him at brian.mcinnis@charter.com