It’s time to stop the madness

Yesterday’s ST’s posts #30 & #37:

Chow was called by OSU not the other way around.

Got um? Guud 🙂

as an example of a coach who ran an anemic offense and then experienced wild success after he hired new offensive coordinators, I direct your attention to Gary Patterson of TCU. Known as a defense first coach with a ball control offense, TCU struggled to score in their first year in the Big 12 and finished near the bottom of the standings.

In the offseason, he hired an entire staff of air raid guys who installed the air raid in TCU, and now they rank second in the country in scoring and just barely missed out on the college football playoffs.

Since cry baby Ben Jay could not fix the athletic woes despite a hefty $400K yearly salary, I propose the following solution, for free.

1. Overhaul Organization Model

While I question whether academic types are fit to run anything, it is very apparent that running an athletics program is something they rather avoid and are unfit to do.

My solution is that they out source the management and administration of the athletic program.

While paying for everything related to the The Bus, the City out sources the running of bus transportation system to a private entity, MTL. Why can’t a similar model, with adjustments, be applied at UH in regards to the athletics program?

I propose that a non-profit corporation be established, called “Rainbow Athletics”.

Class “A” (Voting) and Class “B” (Non-Voting) shares in “Rainbow Athletics” will be issued to supporters based on established criteria like number of season tickets purchased, money donations, etc.

At the organizational meeting of the shareholders, 7 to 9 board members will be nominated and elected. Why not have a Tomey, a Freitas, a Amemiya, for instance, elected to be initial board members? Pay them a small stipend for meetings. With this kind of brain trust working for the program, how can we fail? Tomey for Chairman of the Board?

The board will be responsible for hiring the AD and the AD will answer to the board, and only the board.

Only thing, the AD will hence forth be called the Athletics “CEO”.

The CEO will then hire and appoint, free from State hiring rules, the management team. Instead of Associate ADs, there will be a VP of Marketing, VP of Student Development and Academics, etc. All of the management team will not be in the HGEA union and will serve At Will to the CEO.

Hiring of the football coach and other coaches will be done by the AD and the Board. No more committees.

Once a year, say in June, an annual shareholders meeting will be held where the Directors will either be retained or fired via vote. Also at the annual meeting, the shareholders will have a chance to interact with the board and be informed about the state of the athletics program.

Also once a year, the board will send to all shareholders, an annual report, with financial statements. Besides a financial statement, there will be an annual economic impact statement that will show the true economic impact to the State of the athletic program. For instance, since the Hawaii Bowl exists only because UH has a football team, the economic benefit of the bowl game will be measured and accounted for. Likewise for the Stadium rental. It is shown as an expense in the normal financial reports for the athletic program, but it really is an economic benefit to the State.

II. Institutional Control

Institutional control will be exercised by the hiring of a Compliance Czar (with broad access and authority) who will report to the Chancellor and will dog the athletic program, to make sure all UH policies and procedures and NCAA rules and regs are followed (no more basketball violations).

This will be the only control exercised by the Chancellor over the program, namely to make sure institutional rules are followed.

III. Why Rainbow Athletics?

To get rid of that sissy title in the football name. We kill two birds with one stone. The old timers will be happy. How can they not be happy, with their stock certificate showing the Rainbow name with the Rainbow logo emblazoned upon it.

Seems like there a lot of Mormons on the team.
Hope that leads to strong moral character for the athletes.

Interesting column by Ferd Lewis regarding Ben Jay’s comments about spending more time with his children.
I can relate to that.

Good Morning Hawaii and Hawaii At Heart! Have a Great Aloha Friday!

Eh Akamai, you pretty Akamai eh, das wht dey call you dat? (…interesting concept, treat it like the business it is).

#8 … because non-Mormons don’t have strong character?

#13:

if your premise is correct – should they not sign with BYU?

Chow is only a person who may decide to cash in at any time while BYU will be there forever!

Hawaii is not the only Division I school with an “academic type” running the campus so why assume that an “academic type” can’t manage a school with an athletic department? If you say that this particular chancellor is not up for the responsibility that’s fine but a blanket assumption is a poor assumption.

8… LOL. Talk about discrimination. So if you’re not mormon, then….

Next time I have to hire someone new, I’ll remember to ask what their religious back ground is.. I want moral character.

15. Agree… But also taking a big risk not knowing whether that player stayed in shape or got slower. I think in the past, majority of the mission players at Hawaii didn’t live up to expectations after returning.

Stephen,
Russell Williams is from Laguna Creek.
Sione Kauhi is from Wilsonville High in Oregon.

Small kine Typo but you had it correct in your SA. Feature Story.

The vast majority of players UH gets have not been offered scholarships by any of the other 128 DIV 1 teams. So important to get the sleepers others believe have no potential. This is the challenge UH football coaches face.

Chip Kelly liked him out of High School and he probably would have been a Duck if he didn’t go on his mission.

At 6-5, Sione was also an all star Power Forward in Northwest Oregon.

Think before you post. 😆

TGIF! Aloha Friday!

Okay, now I’m ticked-off.

Ben Jay crying like he did in today’s news paper with Ferd Lewis, and I mean crying, publicly, after that non-sense joke of a news conference the other day.
This is comical. He is a joke. He’s making UH look like a joke, therefore, all of us supporters look like jokes.

Forget 6 months. Fire him immediately!

“Had I known”, then do your damn homework. Your fault. You did it all wrong buddy, said all the wrong things, went about it all wrong, had wrong ideas, wrong solutions, wrong friends, wrong alliances, and it’s wrong for Ben Jay to cry to his former boss at Ohio State who has a bottom-less check-book so he too can go public and fight his poor baby boy’s battles.
What the hell does he know about UH and / or Hawaii?
Are you kidding me?

I felt a little sorry for Ben Jay along the way, for a about a minute, no more, now I feel stupid for feeling sorry. He took my kindness for weakness. Never again.
Beat it!

UH Manoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman, you’re on the clock my friend, show us what you’r’e made of. Honestly, if you had any stones, any self-respect, any dignity, in my opinion, you’d fired Ben’s butt effective immediately!

A-House, what statute of hiring are you citing?

Hawaii’s statute says any non-Hawaii resident applying for a position must wait 1 year before their application will be reviewed/accepted.

Hawaii residents do not have to wait.

If you have a chance read The Disenchanted Isles by some local haole guy who was in the publishing business – forgot his name!

One thing I do like about Sione is that he seems to be a high character person which should translate well into conditioning program and hopefully onto the field

For those watermen out there, the Pipeline Masters is on!

#18: People make these really bizarre assumptions about “academia” and people in academia not knowing how to run schools and athletic departments because they have no idea what theyʻre talking about and kind of have no idea what academia really is.

#40;

DANG, I MUST HAVE BEEN OUT OF COUNTRY WHEN THAT HAPPENED!!!

thanks for the update
now, must get rid of the 10-day waiting period – be like the mainland schools – complete due diligence and CHARGE!!! 2 or 3 days and done!!!

New UNLV head coach, Tony Sanchez, getting a four-year $500, 000 contract. That’s more than what Hauck and Polian was initially hired for and almost as much as what Chow gets. I think I know where some of that Fertittas money might be going towards.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/unlv-rebels/football/sanchez-get-four-year-500000-annual-salary-unlv

#37 A House for your memory bank Theon Wright wrote the Disenchanted Isles.

Seems to me…from what me read on here.. (not read FL)…that
BJ ….JUST CAN’T STOP PUTTING HIS FOOT IN HIS MOUTH…

Hey my dad is Mormon most of my family is Mormon, but if we are so lucky to be getting all these Mormons how come we 5-29 over the past three years against FBS teams under Chow?
And Bad Job Ben Jay just needs to shut it already. His crybaby poor me we going quit football nobody gives me money I don’t know what to do BS is playing out again on the national stage. Ben; get the heck out of town and shut it. You quit. Be gone.

#52: Steve M, you got it right on one account, you don’t know who to believe with the ongoing UH Manoa circus…If I was giving BJ a bad review, you can be assured there would be a contingency in place “in case” he quit. I’d say goodluck and best wishes to BJ and appoint either Clapp or McNamara as “interim” AD and start the search for a replacement…

Ben just needs to keep his mouth shut and move on…It make him and UH look bad. Nobody wins in this mess…

Family is a great reason to throttle-back on a career. I can’t think of any $293K class job that wouldn’t take a toll on family life. Hopefully he actually knows, instead of just thinking that he knows, what the salary impact should be. I can accept the assertion that there were challenges that even a very competent person coming in from the outside couldn’t anticipate. But for cripes sake, the trail of needless entropy that his pronouncements and efforts resulted in leaves me little sympathy for his lack of understanding.

Well, one thing that Jay’s latest revelation does is it opened up UH’s skeleton closet for any new UH AD candidate to see.

The inadequate due diligence he did is probably also mirrored by UH’s lack of full disclosure of its broken model. Why would that not be surprising. It is now all out there.

It’s been that way since the Stadium was built. Upper Campus uses autonomy as a convenient sword and a shield to stave off any quick fixes.

Now the clock his ticking on the Chancellor. Where does he have to run? I am curious to know what basic “minimal” things UH does not have in place that Jay alluded to. If correct, the Chancellor (and Jay’s successor ) also does not have these at his disposal too.

Too bad the elections are pau. It would have been wonderful if we could have asked all who were running if they could furiously support UH athletics. Now most ares silent, looking sideways and avoiding STANDING UP and supporting the UH athletics. Also, there are 60,000 current UH students and 200,000 UH alumni (regent Jeff Portnoy’s numbers). If they would start the war chant to support our Warriors then the politicians would see the(their) benefit of funding a decent Athletic program. Stand Up Hawaii. Be Strong. Be noisy. Demand the best for our athletes. Ben Jay is not the problem. Norm Chow is not the problem. Our athletes are brave and courageous and represent Hawaii. It is time for the timid Politicians and the faceless, feckless alums to be BOLD

Intellectually I don’t think I should be optimistic for next season, but I am. I won’t speculate on the W-L record, but it seems we might do all right in the conference (the non-conference games not so much).

So BJ (Big Joke) admits he cannot do the job and now will spend 6 months proving it to us. That should increase his marketability. Brilliant!

get rid of BJ and what’s his name – acting chancellor – NOW!!!!!!!!!!

#67. Maybe those are the first two sports to get axed? There is no doubt in my mind that Upper Campus is implementing an exit strategy. That’s why Lassner is so quiet.

67… That’s a HUGE issue. That’s the other big problem I have with UH leadership.

I think you meant Beeman, the women’s BB coach, who by the way is doing a great job. Her efforts at UH are going to be noticed by bigger programs and before you know it, Beeman will be gone with no buyout to UH and the WBB program will fall on it’s face again.

Just a list of items UH leadership has messed up on over the past handful of years:
1. They’ve torpedoed MBB coaching
2. Multiple years of horrendous MBB scheduling leading to lower attendance than it should be (more the AD’s fault)
3. Chow’s hiring is failing.
4. Refuse to sign contract extension for good coaches
5. Refuse to properly fund the Athletics program
6. Dave Shoji is likely to retire now that one of his top assistants left
7, Reluctant to upgrade facilities
8. Two Failed Athletic Directors (Three if you go back to Frazier)
9. UH Presidents force to resign/retire
10. Chancellor Apple forced out at the same time several coaches agreed contracts arrive for his signature
11. Several BOR members quit when required to disclose financials
12. Wonder Blunder
13. Construct grandstands at Ching (Cooke) Field that doesn’t draw anybody to begin with.

I’m sure I’m missing some other things, but this is just off the top of my head.

Regarding BJ… he didn’t quit. He was FORCED to quit. very different, maybe why he did a bitter interview.

Gosh Mr. Tsai. I take back what i said about you yesterday. how about some news people asking some real questions. or, do they forbid you all to ask certain questions?
I’m glad Ben Jay said that. It’s the truth and it hurts. someone needed to say it. at least he had the B. to say it.

WOW, so what did you all do to help the athletic dept get out of the ditch. BJ just said the Truth.
Is it going to be different even with a local AD?????.
We are in a hole; so write a check or give cash or offer your services.

Who would want to be the UH Athletic Director, there is no job security and not enough funding for the department. Only grumbling fans .

Six months….of course BJ going stay. Free money for him.

Perhaps the AD’s clones could be more circumspect in their statements, but my guess is that the chancellor’s medical research funding in that area will be short lived.

Howzit Everybody,

Long time no blog

First, with BJ, I felt bad for the brother that he just couldn’t get the job done. Eh fine but what came out today is just sour grapes. Yes there is a great big mountain to climb but you know what grow some and just say you couldn’t quite get up there no just cry about stuff you neva know about. Yes there are all sorts of systematic problems within the UH system but you know what, you just gotta live with it and find a way to navigate through it. These things have never changed and was around from before my time (and I’m 33) but guys like Stan Sherriff did quite well for himself. Can it be done, Yes. Does it take a special person to do it, Definitely.

Second, I will address #80 cause you stay calling out my peeps. First of all the people of this blog have been instrumental in getting a crap load of stuff going at UH over the years. First with the football program and buying exercise bike. Second with the clean up of lower campus. Our own A-house giving of his own time to create a rock garden which got vandalized a while back. And last but not least, a bunch of T-saiko’s starting up the softball booster club. This just some of the stuff these people have done for the school. The list goes on and on but you know what, it’s all from the heart.

87
garans he’ll be milking it.

53…nice one Stevem.

…and when can we pick up the sushi?

Considering the circumstances one might conclude the AD …
1) started growing a backbone
2) has a firm job offer
3) won the lottery
4) is dumber than a box of hammers

Sources say that Paul Chryst is in at Wisconsin but Alvarez says he can’t offer anyone before Wednesday because of UW’s hiring policies and any offer needs the approval of UW’s Board of Regents.

Btw, who said LDS missionaries don’t work out?

Each day and hour, this get more crazy. Just plain and simple no question ask. Fire everyone on upper campus and down to the football coach. If he can’t change the way he call the plays or make it fun to watch. Chow you should have been long gone by now. But we have some people, like you very much. And say we don’t have money to buy you out. And said that you improve the team. I don’t see it that way at all. Look like you $$ or beg UNLV and SJ to loose to you. Because you had more to loose to them. I will always believe in the players. But not you Chow, you just driving this team and UH football to the ground. And taking some sports and other people with you. And if the other (sports) coaches don’t get there contract extended. And they are winning more that you. Then you should take the blame for it.
So this my own opinion, if you agree with it or not. That up to you, to like it or hate it.

Here it is…

http://www.pamplinmedia.com/wsp/136-sports/230654-94325-sione-kauhis-religious-mission-puts-dream-of-playing-college-football-on-hold-

103.

Is it time yet for the angry mob with pitchforks outside UH?

TOP STORIES 1 of 1

Could UH football go away?
Chris Tanaka
Dec 3, 2014 11:51 PM
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Professor of Economics and noted sports economics expert Andrew Zimbalist paints a picture of the current financial landscape in collegiate athletics. It’s not rosy.

“It’s perilous for schools that are not in the top 20 or 30 programs. There are maybe 20 programs across the country that run either in surplus or breaking even on an operating basis”.

UH Manoa is not one of them. The program has run a deficit 11 of the past 13 years. Athletics Director Ben Jay raised eyebrows in August by suggesting UH may have to drop the football program to remain viable. He walked the comments back then, but in November said he’s anticipating a budget shortfall of 3.5 million dollars for the fiscal year.

Those figures are similar to the University of Alabama-Birmingham, which announced on Tuesday it is dropping football. The school projected a net deficit of 25 million dollars over the next 5 years with football. Without it, the projection yielded a revenue of 2 million dollars.

Ending the program is enticing for any cash strapped athletic department.

“Everything has got to be on the table, including that. And we’ve got to look at it reasonably, rationally, and economically” said State Senator Sam Slom. Slom says it may be a tough decision – but the model that UAB created may be one UH needs to explore. “It’s more than just the money itself. They were looking at the university going ahead for the next 20, 30, 40 years. I think that’s what we have to do in our community”.

Hawaii News Now reached out to Ben Jay for comment on this story. He did not return the call.

The $150,000 sounds a lot better than playing NE Nowhere for $250,000.

Wow, that Ben Jay is one smart guy! He “resigns for family reasons” and then promptly dumps on his current employer. That will definitely help his reputation and marketability in the job market. “Hi, I’m Ben Jay. I’m a lifetime assistant type guy who failed miserably at my first chance to be the number one guy. And then I dumped on my employer, the first place to give me a chance to be the number one guy, while I was stil collecting a hefty paycheck from him! Do you want to hire me????”
Boy, he is dumber than dumb. Go tweet that, Mr. Jay.

Whooaa! #58 Let me look up the word entrophy or entropy? In any case, how can the State of Hawaii with all the expertise that was available in the islands figure that some brilliant engineer/architect from the mainland discovered steel that ONLY develops patina and wont rust. Cant believe that the State of Hawaii was duped into that. Its unbelievable!!

I thought at UH they just create a position and reassign personnel?

When a once finely tuned engine develops crud and grime internally, you gun the engine with carburetor/injector cleaner and blast away the grime and dirty crap. Thats all our beloved UH needs, to clean house of all the crappy deposits that are crippling our engine’s performance and longevity. If the engine still doesn’t run properly, then change the engine till you get it right.

@ stephen re #107…i remember Mr. Yoshida walking into a certain attorney’s downtown office in pauahi tower. I know because i was there that afternoon. The next day, Mr. Yoshida was named UH’s AD.

#111. Huh? The UAB model? Senator Slom understands that this means the Leg. will subsidize the athletic department after eliminating the 1 sport that generates the bulk of the revenue, right?

Maybe not.

If Jones can keep his pants on, he’d make a great AD in my opinion. Has trust and respect of the people. I think he can raise money and market the program. Just hard to determine where his mind is at times. Tends to check out and lose focus.

Man I’ve never seen Mr. Tsai so riled up. And rightfully so. But we all gotta give BJ a break. It ain’t easy being a ho. And it ain’t easy being an Asian AD.

The AD situation is an unhelpful distraction from the very poor football record that is the root cause of the revenue falloff. Winning will increase attendance and enable UH to raise season ticket prices. Winning will bring additional money from bowl games and television contracts. A lot to the $3M+ “deficit” has got to be from the long term structural issues (Aloha Stadium, parking, insufficient funding from UH) that are unrelated to the short term “crisis” that the football losses have caused. Fixing the root cause should be the priority. That is the real “madness” that has to stop.

I ken spel reel gud.

Trojan. Pernicious. What dat? Something precious?

YEA FJ…. LIKE SO VERY PRECIOUS …we want to keep forever…like BJ…n NC…
he he he he

LOL. . . there is no way that in this fantasy of JJ becoming the AD he would tolerate Norm Chow’s anemic offense. I’m not sure JJ would make a good overall AD, but I’d love to see it to watch that drama unfold.

134 Kev-1: you are absolutely right. JJ would insist on a new ccordinator. Maybe a recipe for change. in the immortal words of Arte Johnson….Very Interesting!

GOOD MORNING, HAWAII!

One thing I learned in life is that in public, you don’t tell someone his wife is absolutely ugly – even though it is true!