There’s just something wrong about football in warm weather. But something oh-so right about watching it from a skybox on the 50-yard line.

Sunday was a battle of teams with records that didn’t reflect the type of games they’d been playing. Both the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers had played games they should have─and almost did─win and were to meet at the Oakland Coliseum. How I ended up there is because we here at Smart Meetings are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area and were lucky enough to snag an invite to go to the game from Russ Kembel, director of sales and marketing at Hilton Waikoloa Village.

It seems that the Raiderettes (one of whom I’m almost certain I went to high school with) shoot their swimsuit calendar at the gorgeous Hawaiian hotel, and the team thanks Russ for his hospitality by inviting him to a game where he can once again exude hospitality.  

I joined two dozen meeting planners, Hilton employees and special guests in the luxury suite where we got to watch the Raiders lose a 15-point lead in the second half.

Between snaps I chatted with Debbie Hogan, senior director of sales for the Big Island Visitors Bureau, and Mark Coulter, director of rooms division at Hilton San Francisco.  I asked Mark about the hotel’s rooftop Cityscape Restaurant closing and its soon-to-be-completed transformation into a second meeting space.

While I’m sad to see the home of many New Year's Eves for my friends and me disappear, it’s bound to be a great space for meetings. (Besides, I only went to New Year's Eve there at most once a year.)

View at the Raider's game

It was a great gathering up in the fancy suite, and watching the game was a blast─even if the home team absolutely fell apart in the end (however, one young fan in the box wearing a Chargers jersey was having a great time watching his team rally).

Since the game, the head coach of the Raiders has been fired. I can’t help but think, after talking to those lucky enough to live there, that Lane Kiffin should just hop a plane to Hawaii and buy a little hut on the beach.