Dave Reardon: Mr. Angelos, here are some things you need to know and avoid
May 24—Dear Craig Angelos, Thank you for your interest in the position of Director of Athletics for the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Dear Craig Angelos, Thank you for your interest in the position of Director of Athletics for the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The Search Advisory Committee appreciates your thoughtful application materials and your time to meet with them for this important position. After careful consideration of your credentials and the university's needs, a candidate has been identified by President Lassner for approval by our Board of Regents. Accordingly, your application is not being further considered ...
Whoah ...
Wait a second. Scratch that, wrong letter. That's the warm-and-fuzzy email UH sent to other applicants.
You ARE the guy, Mr. Angelos. You got the job.
Congratulations ... and good luck. You're going to need it.
Yes, winners make their own good fortune. One of the ways they do it is by learning from the successes and failures of their predecessors. While time changes some things, others stay the same.
You probably know all of that, and I'm sure you're tired of hearing how different Hawaii is from other places. Regardless, keep smiling. And I noticed on Thursday when you said "continent " instead of "mainland." Good start.
It's tricky. Be on the offense, but don't be offensive. Watch your back, but don't be defensive. Special teams is one third of the game, but be careful with special interests, no matter how much money they donate. From what you've said so far, I think you get that part—you need special (spelled r-i-c-h ) people to help you, but everyone in Hawaii is a stakeholder, even if they don't care about sports and can't tell a Rainbow from a Warrior.
It's quite the balancing act.
As a welcoming gift, here are suggestions of what to emulate and what not to repeat from the actions (and inactions ) of those before you who took on the challenge of the hardest sports job in this state.
David Matlin knew that coming in. He was asked to serve, and he did.
It's on his watch that the Ching Complex was turned from a practice field to one where you can play Division I college football games. Big one for the win column in a tough situation.
It took him a while to pull the trigger, but it looks like Matlin may have found a great fit for UH baseball in second-year coach Rich Hill. Keep him, Charlie Wade and Laura Beeman as happy as you can.
Matlin had to deal with the pandemic in the state that was the most hesitant to let people attend games again. His longstanding strong contacts with ESPN and other TV entities helped. As he did, you should take advantage of our unique TV window as much as possible.
He hired three UH sports legends as head coaches—Nick Rolovich, Robyn Ah Mow and Timmy Chang. That's good stuff.
But when Rolovich left, he made the mistake of bringing in someone from outside when it wasn't necessary. Don't do that, Mr. Angelos. If a winning head football coach gets hired away by a bigger program, there's a very good chance one of his coordinators—especially one who recruited a lot of young talent for a certain offense and knows how that offense works—is the right guy to replace him. There are always enough broken things to fix, so don't mess with the ones that aren't.
Don't push away June Jones and Rich Miano. They want to help you and they don't want too much in return.
One other thing before we move on to Matlin's predecessor : If the UH Sports Circle of Honor committee wants to vote you in before you retire, thank them profusely, but tell them it's too soon and politely decline. If you deserve it, you will get your due later.
Ben Jay had some really good ideas, especially in the area of facilities. But he was used to working at a school, Ohio State, with many more resources than UH. You've worked at all kinds of places, so it might be easier for you to see things with optimistic but realistic vision.
Oh ... and as tempting as it may be for whatever reason DO NOT mess with the nicknames. As Jay learned the hard way, that's just begging for trouble, and you will have other more important things to worry about ... like the stadium situation.
Jim Donovan was great, in many ways : He's a people person who knew and lived the local style, is creative, and he hired Wade and Beeman.
Like all of us, his strengths were sometimes weaknesses : "Hawaii time " of five minutes late to meetings is OK, but only once in awhile, the Wonder Blunder (I'm sure you know what that is by now ) was the result of creativity without guard rails, and he hired Norm Chow and Gib Arnold.
Personally, I really liked Herman Frazier. That was mostly because he's a very funny guy, and a horrible poker player. Bobby Curran can attest to that, and so would Robert Kekaula if he were still with us.
You've probably heard lots of Frazier stories since you both worked at Temple. You also have working at the NCAA in common, and I know of at least one situation where Frazier's contacts there helped keep UH out of hot water.
Frazier was a magnet for criticism, largely because he didn't make enough influential friends in Hawaii who would step up for him to help with fundraising and facilities. Some viewed him as arrogant.
UH fans almost unanimously consider him a terrible AD. Even though Hawaii went 12-0 in football in 2007 and got to the Sugar Bowl, Frazier was fired a few days later (not coincidentally, Jones had moved on to SMU right after the New Year's blowout loss ).
Frazier caught a lot of heat for not scheduling a 13th football game in'07. But considering the beatdown by Georgia, it's very debatable if UH would've gone undefeated and to a BCS bowl if it had added a nonconference road game, which was the goal.
I'm not sure if Frazier would've kept his job even if the Sugar Bowl score had been 41-10 the other way around. The jury had already come back on him the previous May, after Grill Herman Frazier Day at the state Capitol.
The most important thing to learn from Frazier's experience, Mr. Angelos, is to immediately start doing at work what you will when you move into your new residence : Find the sources of power and start making your connections.
