HONOLULU — Nearly two months after it was initially scheduled to start, work formally began this week on the University of Hawaii’s Cooke Field for an on-campus soccer and track and field venue, causing several sports to adjust their routines.
The Cooke project accounted for roughly half of UH’s $30 million expansion plan for the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex that was announced in August 2022. UH expects to have the facility ready for the start of the fall 2024 soccer season as initially called for, Athletic Director Craig Angelos told Spectrum News.
“That is the plan I’m told,” Angelos said in a message.
Contractor RMY Construction will level the two-tiered grass fields where the UH football and soccer teams have long practiced into one playable space with a drainage system that will run roughly mauka to makai. Plans call for a retaining wall at the mauka end.
Initial projections for the first phase — the 1,200-seat stands, grass field and outlying track — were for it to be finished in May 2024. A later phase with no announced completion date calls for lights to be installed for night events and a ticket booth.
Affected sports in the interim are football, soccer, track and field and cross country.
The football team has traditionally used both the artificial turf at Ching Complex and the grass at Cooke Field in a given practice week. The soccer team has always practiced at Cooke and the track and field program has a designated throwing area there.
The delayed start to the project had the effect of helping football and soccer well into their fall seasons. Timmy Chang’s Rainbow Warriors were able to practice there for the first seven weeks of the season through Monday, before the team left for Albuquerque, N.M., for Saturday’s game against New Mexico.
By Thursday, tall black sight barriers were erected around Cooke.
When asked about the delayed start, Angelos said assistant athletic director for facilities Teri Wilhelm Chang told him that “construction was originally going to start the end of August but that the contractor (RMY Construction) still had to get a few things in place before they could begin. So once they were to begin, we did ask them to push it back two weeks because of football practice and they agreed to do that because they could work around us for the first few weeks.”
Looking ahead, football, which has five regular-season games remaining after Saturday, will have to adjust with a smaller practice space at Ching Complex — the length and width of a standard football field.
“Yeah, it’ll affect the way we practice,” Chang said earlier this month. “You know, one field, a collegiate team, you really want your space. Quarterbacks are throwing the ball 50, 55 yards downfield. … You can’t all fit on 100 yards. Usually universities have multiple fields to practice on, or (beyond) 100 yards to space out offensive line, defensive line; skill guys take up a lot of space on the field.
“It does present a challenge, but we have to work around it and find solutions to make it work.”
The UH track and field and cross country teams have had to adjust sharply to the combined work on Ching Complex and Cooke. Coach Tim Boyce, who has said he supports the project for its long-term benefits, said a message this week that his teams have used Saint Louis School’s campus for running and hurdles workouts.
His throwers (shot put, discus, hammer and javelin) have been using an auxiliary space behind the ROTC building on Manoa Lower Campus.
“We have been greatly impacted by all of the changes since Spring ’21,” Boyce messaged.
Michele Nagamine took to social media this week to bid farewell to Cooke as the 13th-year soccer coach has known it. She called it the "end of an era." Earlier in the fall, she had arranged to practice at nearby Mid-Pacific Institute in lieu of a usable Cooke, but UH is nearing the end of its season.
The Rainbow Wahine play their home finale at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium on Sunday.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.