Cal's Nick Rolovich, Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele Acquainted with Hawaii Bowl

Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele lives 20 minutes from cozy, 15,194-seat Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex, site of Wednesday’s Hawaii Bowl.

He’s been there many times to watch University of Hawaii football games and was there on December 5 watching his high school team in the state championship game when he received a text from home saying Tosh Lupoi was making a midnight visit to his home.

But Wednesday will be the first time he’ll play a game there in the 22nd Hawaii Bowl against Hawaii.

It’s said with some conviction that there probably would not have been a first Hawaii Bowl were it not for the passing exploits of Nick Rolovich, now Cal’s interim head coach but Hawaii’s quarterback in 2001.

He led the Rainbow Warriors to a 9-3 record that season, including a 72-45 victory over unbeaten, ninth-ranked BYU in the final game of the season – a game in which Rolovich threw eight touchdown passes in his final college game as a player.

But the disappointment of Hawaii not being invited to a bowl game that season caused the University of Hawaii, the Western Athletic Conference and ESPN to get together to create the Hawaii Bowl starting the next year, 2002.

Rolovich became Hawaii’s head coach in 2016, and his first game as a head coach at any level was on August 26, 2016 in Sydney, Australia, and was against – believe it or not – Cal.

The Golden Bears handed Rolovich and Hawaii a 51-31 defeat in his head coaching debut, but Hawaii regrouped and earned a berth in the Hawaii Bowl that season. That was the first of three berths in that bowl game in Rolovich’s four years as Hawaii’s head coach, and he won two of them.

Hawaii (8-4) will play in the Hawaii Bowl for the 10th time this year.

The Hawaii Bowl was played at 50,000-seat Aloha stadium during Rolovich’s playing and coaching days at Hawaii, although the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex was a practice facility for Hawaii football during Rolovich’s time as the Rainbow Warriors head coach.

However, in December 2020 issues with Aloha Stadium led to Hawaii’s home games and the Hawaii Bowl being moved to the Ching Athletics Complex starting in 2022.

Aloha Stadium is currently being demolished, with plans to replace it with a 22,500-seat stadium that will be home to Hawaii football and the Hawaii Bowl in 2029.

So for the time being Hawaii’s home games and the Hawaii Bowl are played at Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex. It is not the smallest venue for FBS teams this year, with the home fields of Kennesaw State and Same Houston State and the temporary facility used by Northwestern this year being smaller.

But the Ching Complex, located on the University of Hawaii campus, is a good place to play a college football game.

So even though Rolovich and Sagapolutele are intimately familiar with Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex, they will participate in a game there for the first time on Wednesday.

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