Oh, how football memories fade.

And, we're not just talking about the poor running backs and quarterbacks who have been leveled by the University of Hawai'i's Adam Leonard or Melila Purcell lately, either.

Specifically, we're talking about those who, with UH (5-2) on a four-game roll and two games away from bowl eligibility, think the Warriors have outgrown the homegrown Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl. Those who think it would be one Halawa come-down to spend Christmas Eve at Aloha Stadium.

Those who forget that UH went 9-3 in 2001 and, as its reward, got to watch the bowl games on TV.

Just this month a writer of a letter to the editor of your favorite morning newspaper suggested "playing in UH's own bowl (the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl) is not acceptable anymore."

Judging from calls, e-mails and radio callers, it is a widely held sentiment. And, also a flawed one.

Fact is UH — and its fans — should thank their lucky stars that they have the game in their backyard. Because without it bowl appearances would be few and far between. And those that did manage to come UH's way would otherwise be in Boise, Idaho, or Albuquerque, N.M.

Nothing says postseason reward like a ffffffrostbitten December spent in Boise.

Should the Warriors go, say, 11-2, would it be preferable to return to the Holiday Bowl, scene of their Top 20 finish in 1992?

Of course. No one who was there will forget Shamu or the atmosphere.

But like a lot of other things surrounding the sport, the postseason landscape has changed considerably since then. Once upon a time the Western Athletic Conference champion played a team from the Big Ten. In UH's case in 1992, it was Illinois. But that arrangement ended in 1997, before the 16-team WAC blew up.

Now, the Holiday Bowl matches teams from the Pac-10 and Big-12, and unless a WAC team elbows its way into the Bowl Championship Series with a perfect record, it is placed in the Hawai'i Bowl, MPC Computers Bowl (Boise) or inaugural New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque) or bartered elsewhere.

These days, more than ever before, it is the number of fans who, in the parlance of bowl officials, "travel well" (i.e. book hotel rooms, eat in restaurants and shop 'til they drop) that define a non-BCS bowl's interest in a team. Records are strictly secondary.

And when you are UH, with at least 2,500 miles to traverse and a limited number of fans able to ante up for expensive holiday season flights, a bowl's interest can wane rapidly.

All things considered, UH — and its fans — should be happy to have the Hawai'i Bowl. It is certainly preferable to telling potential recruits how you can go 9-3 and not be in one.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.