For two schools farther apart than the length of the Great Wall of China, the University of Hawai'i and Louisiana Tech should have something in common these days.

In addition to steep travel bills, that is.

That would be a sense of concern about what the declining economy might mean for them in an increasingly jittery Western Athletic Conference.

Saturday's football pairing of UH and Tech at Aloha Stadium represents the bookend schools of the WAC, 4,035 miles apart and invariably the first ones mentioned when members wring their hands about travel and moan about costs.

These days there are few issues paramount among college athletic officials anywhere. At a time when schools are facing higher costs, budgetary cutbacks and income streams from ticket sales, sponsorships and fundraising are increasingly at risk, the bottom line is coming in for detailed examination.

And nowhere in college athletics is travel more of an expense or money tighter than in the WAC, the nation's most far-flung conference. At its annual meetings in Dallas last week the WAC Council appointed an economic task force to study, among other things, ways to reduce costs.

For the moment, it appears, UH will probably still host the conference baseball and tennis tournaments in the spring. And the women's volleyball tournament next month is solid. But beyond that it could be a while before UH hosts any future WAC championships in this economic climate.

The bigger, and — for the moment — unspoken concern has to be whether a prolonged economic slump prompts the WAC membership to consider reinstituting travel subsidies with you-know-who expected to pick up the tab.

When UH was invited to join the WAC for 1979, it came with the understanding that the school would underwrite opponents' travel here and the school opened wide its wallet.

When the WAC expanded to 16 teams for 1996, UH President Kenneth Mortimer got a hard-won release from the subsidies. But he and athletic director Hugh Yoshida had to fight off attempts to reinstate them two years later. It did not go down well and when the eight schools that bolted the WAC formed the Mountain West Conference in 1999, among the laundry lists of reasons cited for both the dead-of-the-night departure and refusal to extend an offer to UH was travel expense.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson says there has, so far, been no talk of subsides. "Our philosophy is to treat all of our schools (the same) regardless of geographical location." But, he also says, "I think we have to be prudent in making good business decisions at the same time."

In the WAC, UH and Tech have the most reasons to hope the economy improves sooner rather than later.

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