WAC Travel Nightmares Almost Over

Recent travels with the UH basketball team have made me more anxious than ever for most UH sports to move to the Big West.

Snowstorms in Logan, Utah … frigid temperatures and travel delays out of Ruston, La., and Las Cruces, N.M. … interminable layovers from Moscow, Idaho …

All that will be in the rear-view mirror come 2013.

The California-based Big West will feature flights to L.A. or San Francisco, and then relatively short drives in comparatively balmy weather, and it will be cheaper to boot. I won’t miss inching along in a blizzard with avalanche warnings, as we recently experienced in Sardine Canyon between Salt Lake City and Logan.

* The most excited of any UH coach might be baseball’s Mike Trapasso, whose Rainbows will be joining a conference perennially in the top five in RPI. Coupled with the non-conference opponents that UH traditionally lures to Murakami Stadium, the Rainbows will often be able to generate one of the best schedules in the country, where playing .600 ball should about guarantee an invitation to an NCAA regional.

The 2011 baseball Bows have 18 new players and at least 10 lively arms. The season starts Feb. 18 with the Oregon Ducks visiting.