Amid the fallout over the NCAA sanctions dealt three University of Hawai'i teams for lagging Academic Progress Rates yesterday, it is easy to overlook one of the stellar efforts on campus.

Too bad, too, because the three sports that make up the track and field element at UH — indoor track and field, outdoor and cross country — and their coaches have done wonders.

They account for three of the five teams in the 19-sport athletic department with "perfect" APR scores (1,000) for the past year (women's volleyball and women's basketball being the others) meaning that the triple jump of the APR — eligibility, retention and graduation — has been seamless.

What is particularly noteworthy is that the three have done it with the second-largest squad, 42 scholarship athletes, to football, and against a nearly year-round calendar for some and at least a half-year's labor for most.

Some of the athletes compete from August to November in cross country, jump in on indoor track January to March, and finish with outdoor track March to June. Most do at least the indoor-outdoor double. For them, there is little off-season to bolster academics. It is a life-on-the-run proposition and one they have handled remarkably well with 15 earning scholar-athlete status.

They do this because, in the parlance of Title IX, the 42 scholarship athletes can be counted as 98 "participation opportunities." Women's track and field exists largely as a balance for football. Gender-equity mandates equal opportunities for men and women and because football, with its 85 scholarships, can skew the numbers, track helps level the scales.

But these Rainbow Wahine have done more than just tidy up the balance sheet. Indoor track and field finished second in the WAC this year and 39th (among 249 teams) in the NCAAs. Ten Rainbow Wahine have qualified for this month's NCAA outdoors.

They do it with head coach Carmyn James and one full-time assistant and a Cooke Field facility whose weed-infested and crumbling infield is one of the biggest eyesores on campus. Because the javelin and hammer can tear up the grass soccer practice fields, its use is limited to major meets.

Yet, for all that track has done under the circumstances, the previous athletic department administration curiously kept James on a string of one-year contracts, all but inviting her to leave. A pretty dumb stunt since she counted as three of the four women's head coaches in the department and had a suit pending.

The new administration, much more akamai, knows what a good thing it has in its track programs. Even before the APRs underlined it yesterday.

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