The hiring of Nick Rolovich as University of Hawaii head football coach concludes a remake of the UH administrative and athletic hierarchy that’s clearly designed to lower the volume after three years of turmoil following the Stevie Wonder concert fiasco.
The top hires share key qualities: ties to Hawaii and UH, reasonably even personalities, familiarity with the poisonous politics surrounding UH and willingness to work for less than their predecessors.
Lower-cost, lower-ego and lower-drama leadership is a welcome turn as UH seeks to dig out from a long run of tumult and poor decisions that badly damaged the school’s reputation in the community and beyond.
The reshaping began when the Board of Regents hired UH lifer David Lassner as university president, dispensing with the national search that produced the stormy presidencies of Evan Dobelle and M.R.C. Greenwood.
By going in-house with Lassner, who previously ran the UH information technology department, regents obviously were hoping to replicate the relatively calm presidency of David McClain, another well-liked UH insider who kept a steady course between Dobelle and Greenwood.
Lassner similarly went in-house for a Manoa chancellor, naming Robert Bley-Vroman, formerly dean of languages, literature and linguistics; the previous two imported chancellors — Virginia Hinshaw and Tom Apple — had both been ousted with generous bailouts.
Bley-Vroman followed the same hiring philosophy after Ohio State import Ben Jay was forced out as athletic director, replacing him with longtime Hawaii sports marketer David Matlin.
For his first critical coaching hires, Matlin embraced the preference for local ties — and added a fondness for youth.
To break the men’s basketball program away from the scandal-plagued Gib Arnold era, his choice for head coach was 33-year-old Eran Ganot, a former UH assistant coach who most recently earned good marks as an assistant at St. Mary’s.
Matlin ended the hard-luck run of Norm Chow as head football coach and hired Rolovich, 36, a popular former UH quarterback and assistant coach who is coming off a successful run as offensive coordinator at the University of Nevada.
There were more experienced candidates for both coaching jobs, but Rolovich and Ganot seem excellent fits for Hawaii with high upside potential.
And as young, first-time head coaches, they commanded relatively low starting salaries — no small consideration given the athletic department’s nagging budget deficit.
The important point is that from the regents down, the UH hierarchy seems finally aligned in a common leadership style and management philosophy, key to achieving the strong and stable state university that is so vital to Hawaii’s future.
With the volume down, perhaps lawmakers and the broader community will put away the knives for a time and give these leaders a fair chance to get academics and athletics back on track.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
