Hull: Hawaii game is "opportunity of a lifetime" for Delaware State football players
DOVER — Lee Hull had met Craig Angelos before.
Angelos’ son, Aaron, was a quarterback on Hull’s Delaware State football team last fall.
But when Angelos called Hull after …
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Hull: Hawaii game is "opportunity of a lifetime" for Delaware State football players
By Andy Walter
DOVER — Lee Hull had met Craig Angelos before.
Angelos’ son, Aaron, was a quarterback on Hull’s Delaware State football team last fall.
But when Angelos called Hull after the season, he was calling him as Hawaii’s athletic director.
The school had its game with Oregon dropped because of new conference alignments.
Angelos wanted to know if Hull would be interested in bringing the Hornets to Hawaii.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, for sure,’” Hull recalled. “It’s an opportunity you can’t pass up. For our players, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”
That’s how Delaware State finds itself preparing to take its football team almost 5,000 miles to play its season opener at Hawaii on Aug. 24.
While the Hornets’ men’s basketball team made the trip to Hawaii in 2016, it’s a much different venture taking a traveling party of 100 people — plus football equipment — that distance.
The logistics may be a headache, but Hull said the chance to show his players another part of the world makes it worth it. He said no more than four of them have been to Hawaii before.
DelState will be the first HBCU school to play at Hawaii in football since Grambling in 1976.
“It’s about the players,” said Hull, who is starting his second season as the Hornets’ head coach. “It’s something that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.
“Probably 90 percent of them will never, ever go to Hawaii again in their lives. Why not give them that great opportunity?”
The trip won’t cost DSU any more than it would for a shorter road trip, said Hull.
The Hornets plan to visit the historical sites at Pearl Harbor while taking in some of the culture of the island.
Before DelState even boards a plane, however, Hull thinks playing Hawaii will pay dividends for the program.
Opening the season against an NCAA Division I FBS team has given the Hornets a good deal of off-season motivation. The fact DelState will get some national attention — the game will be one of only seven contests being played that day — doesn’t hurt, either.
At the same time, not every player on the roster will get to make the trip. That should push the players a little harder in summer workouts, too.
DSU has a roster of about 95 players with a MEAC limit of 74 players for road games.
Hull broke the news to his players about the Hawaii game after a session during spring practice in February.
“The guys have been working really, really hard this summer already. They know it’s probably what? Fifty-eight days before we play them (Hawaii). It’ll be here soon.
“It gives those guys some extra motivation to work hard,” Hull continued. “It’s the first time since 1976 that an HCBU has been there. I think they know it’s a big deal. We want to go there and put on a good show.
“It’s just constant motivation. They talk about it all the time. There’s a lot of competition to try to get on that plane.”
The trip itself, which is being put together by director of football operations Jane Hicks, should be grueling.
DSU will bus to New York’s JFK International so that it can make the 10-and-a-half hour plane ride to Hawaii non-stop.
Leaving on Aug. 20, the Hornets will have a few days to get ready for the game. Coming back, though, will be a different story.
Flying back the day after the game, they won’t arrive back on campus until the early-morning hours of Monday, Aug. 26.
Not only is that the first day of classes at DSU, it’s just five days before the Hornets have to play a game against Sacred Heart in Fairfield, Conn. on Aug. 31
Hull knows it won’t be an easy turnaround. But he said DelState having an open date the following weekend should give the players a chance to bounce back.
Since Sacred Heart doesn’t have a game before it faces the Hornets, Hull and his staff will start preparing for both Hawaii and the Pioneers over the summer.
“There’s a lot going on,” said Hull.
For a program that’s coming off a 1-10 season, the Hornets want to believe that things can be different fall.
Certainly starting the schedule off with a 5,000-mile trip to play a game on a tropical island is something Delaware State’s football program hasn’t done before.
Hull believes that all the details that the Hornets are working on now will make the trip worth it.
“There’s a lot that goes into it,” he said. “People who don’t know, think, hey, we’re just going to get on a plane and go play a game. There’s a lot more to it than that.”
Extra points
•No kickoff time has been announced for the game yet. There’s a six-hour time difference between Delaware and Hawaii.
•The Warriors are also slated to play another FCS team, Northern Iowa, on Sept. 21. Only one of the FCS games counts toward them being bowl eligible.
•Craig Angelos, who most recently at Long Island and Temple, was hired as Hawaii’s AD last May.
