At what point is it better to let go of a long-held but unworkable dream? Is being realistic the same as giving up?

As reported this week, former Hawaii Govs. John Waihee, Ben Cayetano and Neil Abercrombie have united in speaking out against plans to rebuild a replacement football stadium at the site of the now unusable Aloha Stadium in Halawa.

The New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District would rebuild a smaller stadium to replace the rusted current facility along with hotels, retail, housing and other venues in and around the 98-acre site. Waihee, Cayetano and Abercrombie say that plan will be a huge waste of taxpayer money, another big dream destined to fail.

The three former governors are hardly taking a risk in being naysayers, though.

It’s easy for a politician to speak the truth when they have nothing to lose.  The three are not in office and are not currently seeking to return to elected office. They no longer have to kiss up to the construction unions. They don’t have to spin fanciful visions of a future Hawaii where we have our own NFL team and play host to big bowl games or professional soccer matches.

They have the privilege that comes with being a former leader — being able to speak with authority without having to assume responsibility.

But they’re right. The dream of attracting a professional sports team to Aloha Stadium never came true.

The age-old battle to maintain a huge state-funded facility standing in the sweep of Halawa rain, beating sun and the corrosive drift of sea salt borne on the wind was lost early on. In recent years, attendance at UH football games looked like social distancing was in place well before anyone even heard of a pandemic.

It’s hard to admit that Aloha Stadium is a big dream that never really came true, because in some ways — small, deeply personal ways — it did.

For high school kids running out onto the field for the first time to play a game, those bright lights and looming stands felt like a Hollywood moment. For teams visiting from cold colleges, running around in the golden Hawaii sun in November and December must have felt like heaven. For the University of Hawaii football team, having a home stadium was a measure of status.

I looked up some of the old newspaper stories from when Aloha Stadium first opened in September of 1975. A piece by Star-Bulletin writer Dick Couch included quotes from UH football players that put that Aloha Stadium dream into heartbreaking perspective.

One player described watching the stadium rise from the Halawa flats as he drove back and forth between his Wahiawa home and the UH campus. “Every time I passed it, I got goose bumps,” he said.

“I’ve seen some big stadiums on the Mainland. But this one’s got to be the nicest of all,” another player said.

A star player confessed to jumping the fence before the stadium was officially opened to get an early look at the place.

“We sneaked in one night and went right down on the field. We were lying out there on the turf, looking up at the stars. It was beautiful.”

Gosh!

UH Coach Larry Price looked at the stadium on opening day and told the newspaper, “A great honor has been bestowed on us. We feel we have a tremendous obligation to play as well as we can.”  Hawaii went on to get creamed in its first game in the stadium, 43-9, by Texas A&I.

The best government building projects fulfill more than just utilitarian needs. They go beyond aesthetics and that squishy descriptive term “Hawaiian sense of place.” The best ones are also inspiring to the humans that will enter the structure or gaze at it from afar. They come to have a deeper meaning to a community, hold a bit of aspirational pride, even stand as the manifestation of a goal achieved.

Aloha Stadium was never that kind of beautiful, prideful, majestic place. A re-sized football stadium on the Manoa campus like the former governors describe may not come with many grandiose promises of future economic synergy and a bustling entertainment hub like the NASED plan, but it could be filled with the palpable energy of student fans who can walk from their dorm rooms to see the games in person, and bleachers that are filled with supporters from top to bottom.

The Halawa site would be more useful to address housing needs for Hawaii residents. It is a smaller dream, but a better dream because it is a reachable goal.