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The University of Hawaii football program has a money problem – and in college football money talks.

But so does culture.

UH football has another challenge that’s unappreciated and never discussed. That one isn’t economic. It’s cultural: The disappearance of a certain kind of fan who might be harder to replace than a broken stadium or a chronically pinched revenue stream.

Lost fans like Paul Campos.

In his book “,” the Colorado law professor describes his powerful attachment to University of Michigan football, where he went to college and near where he grew up. Campos has not lived there for over 40 years. He still travels thousands of miles to see their games.

In “the sunlight illuminating the immense (Michigan) stadium before me,” he gushes, he is “transformed once again by the longing of exile into the awe-inspiring sight it was on the day I first saw it as a child.”

Sitting next to a 6-year-old boy at the child’s first Michigan game, Campos wonders if one day that boy also “would find himself entangled in memories of the irrecoverable past.”

Campos calls himself and people like him “engaged fans.” For these boosters, football is an obsession, almost an addiction. Victories are agonizing because they bring back powerfully sad memories of defeat. Defeats are thrilling because they generate so much talk.

This engagement is more ritualistic than rational, more emotionally resonant than simply a day at the game.

It is deep, constant and absolutely essential.

Most fans aren’t like this. Most are more like spectators who are at most casual fans and anonymous members of what athletic officials like to call a “fan base.”

No matter how big and successful a college football program is — Michigan is a prime example of one of the Big Boys — its success depends on the antics, agonies and alliances of this relatively small, admittedly zany, tribal, engaged fan.

Money talks. But culture sustains.

Maybe Hawaii football had a critical mass of engaged fans before. They’re gone now – and UH football can’t survive without them.

Here is why the engaged fan is so essential, and here’s why Hawaii football has lost them and why it’s so complicated to turn this around:

Engaged fans are not necessarily the biggest donors. They are so valuable because they are the storytellers who keep memories alive. Constantly talking about the team, taking a 6-year-old to his first game and passing on lore while explaining what’s happening on the field. Modeling the importance of loyalty and attachment.

Keepers and suppliers of nostalgia. Seeing a venue as sacred space — Campos’ awe-inspiring Michigan Stadium in the sun. Tradition and intergenerational transmission.

That’s the glue that holds tradition together as well as the sympathetic catalyst when things need to change. Thick or thin, bad season or not, you stay loyal and model why others should too.

The key pieces in Hawaii that make and keep people like Campos so attached are gone now. Hey, Rainbow Warrior fans, when was the last time you felt awe?

Sacred space, the setting and scene so much a part of memories and loyalty, is gone. Aloha Stadium is gone. It was a sterile venue to begin with, but memories don’t necessarily require loveliness.

There will be no new stadium until, optimistically, 2028. By then, sacred-space memories will have faded even more.

Impact: Civil Beat Investigation Leads Aloha Stadium Consultant To Return $440,000

UH deserves credit for building a temporary stadium, but it’s hard to imagine, rather it’s hard for fans to imagine, that tiny place in the quarry as anything but temporary.

A memory quasher rather than a memory sustainer. Nuts and bolts instead of awe.

Many fewer people go to UH games, providing many fewer opportunities for kupuna to sit with their families at a game and talk story about teams and years gone by. Pay-per-view falls way short.

By 2028, it will be close to a decade of temporary space between real spaces. That’s a long time. Old-timers like the Engaged Fans I know will be gone. The memories and habits of engagement will have faded.

Remember the heart of UH football is not UH students. It’s a community team. There’s now an emotional dislocation from UH football. The thread is torn.

This is more than a hiatus. It’s a deep, dark crevice that’s hard if not impossible to climb out of because, in so many ways, doing so requires starting over.

Don’t think in terms of athletic-department speak, which is all about monetizing. An engaged fan would find that UH should change its game times to accommodate gamblers an abomination because gambling tempts a loyalist to bet against her own team.

Don’t fall for optimistic but simplistic politician – – speak: “If you build it, they will come.”

Instead, you have to think like an anthropologist or a cultural practitioner because bringing that engaged fan back requires cultural revitalization, “the process of reclaiming and reevaluating cultural practices, traditions, and values that have been lost or marginalized due to historical or contemporary factors.”

Constant conversations, collaboration. Keeping memories alive, linking the past to the future, bringing back a sense of awe, especially telling stories – all of those are key.

That sounds like Hawaii generally, doesn’t it? The Hawaiian Renaissance of the ’60s and ’70s, the efforts to bring back the Hawaiian language and cultural practices, and the ongoing attempt to find the right combination of traditional and modern – these are forms of revitalization.

The cultural revitalization article I cited above is a good general guide.

“Hey, come on. It’s just football.” Yes, it is, and I’m not arguing that UH football is worth it.

But I am arguing not to be so dismissive with the word “just.” Whether you care or not or want it or not, UH football is a cultural project that needs to be successful if football is to be successful.

Fan or not, understanding football helps you understand the place where you live, which is always a good idea.