This was the scene on the field after Hawaii's home win over Cincinnati last week: Fans trading punches. Players trading punches. Mascots trading punches. Police used riot spray to break it all up.

This, thanks to the power of instant replay, is what people nationwide perceive about the Hawaii football community; that it's more pepper spray than poi, more handcuffs than hula.

This is a shame.

Giving Thanks For A Friend

Tom McMahon had a phrase for everything. Players on his Colorado defense were "Ringtail Wonders" when they did it right, "High School Harrys" when they did it wrong. And every week, whether the schedule called for a patsy or a powerhouse, he'd be heard to say, "This sucker doesn't have to be close." Tom McMahon and Vince Okruch shared a job and a headset. As co-defensive coordinators for the Buffaloes they worked together figuring out how to stop the other guys. "A co-coordinator relationship is a unique one,'' Okruch said. "You've got to have the right two people. They don't have to be opposites. They don't have to be the same. The ultimate personality trait is that you have to trust each other." From the day in February, 1999 when Okruch met his new co-coordinator at a hotel in Northwest Indiana and talked football in the middle of a Beanie Baby convention they clicked as a team and as friends. They planned and schemed and laughed and cried and got to know each other so well that on the day in June 2000 when McMahon closed the door of Okruch's office and told his friend, "I have cancer," they had the same idea. Find a game plan. Find a way to prove the doctors, who said the cancer attacking McMahon's lungs was inoperable, were wrong. McMahon went from doctor to doctor, from treatment to treatment. He had a lung removed in September, 2000 and when the defensive staff sneaked into his hospital room later that evening all McMahon could talk about was coming in the next day to watch film. A month later he was back coaching. Last season he missed two games but was back in the booth when the Buffaloes upset Texas for the Big 12 championship. In February doctors said he had the cancer on the run. It came back, of course, but now the game plan was running out of adjustments. One Friday last June, when he and Okruch were working on adjustments to when an offense motions into a one-back set, the 53-year-old McMahon was a strong-willed as ever. "I was tired and I told Tom that there was nothing at 3 p.m. today that couldn't wait until 7 a.m. Monday," Okruch said. "I left. He kept working." Sunday morning, June 9, McMahon's wife, Marilyn called Okruch. "Tom's dead," she said. Though the Buffaloes remember McMahon in different ways, from messages in marker on shoes and wristbands to keepsakes in their lockers, they haven't dedicated the season to their coach. McMahon told them not to, just after he mentioned he had cancer that day almost two-and-a-years ago. Friday when the Buffaloes host Nebraska in their last regular-season game on the day after Thanksgiving, Okruch will put on the coaching shirt with the patch on the chest that reads "Mac." He'll pull on a heavy coat, adjust his headset and think of his friend and what game plan he might have in store for Jammal Lord and the Cornhuskers. And maybe he'll say, "This sucker doesn't have to be close." -- Mark Wangrin

Toni Floerke-Politsch, a 20-year fan of the Warriors, shakes her head in dismay at such a public perception. "The end of that game," she said, "was not the display of the Aloha spirit.''

Try this on for Aloha spirit.

Nate Jackson was born on Christmas Day 1979 and put up for adoption. He grew up in a family with seven sisters and two brothers. So hungry was to walk-on at on at Hawaii in 1998 as a 5-foot-10, 148-pound defensive back that he didn't mind making the daily commute from his home in Waianae to the UH campus, a trip that often took 90 minutes one-way during rush hour.

He won a spot on the team, then a starting job at free safety, and then a reputation for toughness. Last season he was in a motorcycle accident and suffered a deep gash in his leg that required two layers of stitches. Four days later he played against Fresno State.

He was tough and he could hit.

"He'd just lay on hits on people," Floerke-Politsch said.

Then life hit back.

Jackson finished his football career last season and went to training camp with Tennessee but was cut. He returned to finish his degree and play one final season of baseball next spring. During offseason conditioning in the early fall, Jackson fell ill with a fever he couldn't shake. He was hospitalized on Oct. 24 and doctors determined he had a virus that had done irreparable damage to his heart.

Floerke-Politsch was watching the television news one day when she saw a story on Jackson. She remembered him as a player, remembered how on the day the Warrior seniors walked around the edges of Aloha Stadium the day of their final home game she had gotten his autograph. It was for her 3-year-old son, who studying his signature on the worn game program and then looked up at her and said, "I want to be Nate, mama."

Floerke-Politsch was moved to help in anyway she could. A vice president of a local property management firm, she and friend Susan Kekai opened a back account in the name of "The Friends of Nate Jackson," secured a post office box, set up a web page (www.friendsofnatejackson.org) and started thinking of ways to help.

The pair had no idea how much help was needed. Jackson has a 2-year-old son named Nate Jr. and his girlfriend Shereen is due in early December with the couple's second child. They do not have health insurance.

"We brought all the DBs to visit him,'' UH secondary coach Rich Miano told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. "There were tears in everybody's eyes because they all know how strong he is and could see how he was suffering. To see him in pain, you know it's incredible pain because he's the toughest kid I've ever seen."

As Jackson and the doctors fought the infection that prevented him from having heart surgery, the community went to work. A local restaurant had a brunch party to raise money. Another sponsored a "Tailgate for Nate" fund raiser that took place only hours after Jackson underwent a five-hour surgery Nov. 22 to replace two damaged valves with those harvested from a pig. A former teammate had T-shirts printed and rally towels were sold to raise money. Both local papers, the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser, donated money and helped collect funds.

"I was in tears every five minutes," Floerke-Politsch said. "Kids would pass up their cotton candy so they could put their $2 in the bucket."

In three weeks the efforts have collected $48,000, a big help but a small dent in the final medical bill, estimated of upwards of $250,000.

"Our slogan is to, 'Ride the Wave of Aloha with the Friends of Nate Jackson,'" Floerke-Politsch said. "It's like a tsunami at this point."

Jackson is still not out of danger. A postoperative infection has set in, sending his temperature rising, and doctors and the family remain concerned. Unable to help him medically, his loyal supporters hope to keep doing what they can do: collecting money here and there, any way they can, to ease Jackson's burden.

Floerke-Politsch is pulling for his recovery, and when that's all taken care of she has one other small wish.

"His family doesn't know us and we don't know them,'' she said. "I hope one day of meeting Nate when he gets out of the hospital. Maybe I can get his autograph."

This one she'll keep for herself.

Mark Wangrin covers college football for the San Antonio News-Express.