In the coming weeks the University of Hawaii will name a starting quarterback and a Manoa chancellor, or two.
While the former will get most of the headlines and generate the biggest buzz, history tells us it would be a mistake to overlook the significance of the latter on the athletic department.
As part of being the “CEO of the Manoa campus”, the chancellor is responsible for overseeing athletics, representing it in the conferences where UH competes and establishing its priority on campus. They are roles that often have been grudgingly accepted and quickly passed along like a hot potato among a parade of office holders in the 16 years since the Board of Regents reestablished the position.
Whoever succeeds Robert Bley-Vroman, whose two-year interim appointment expires Aug. 31, will be the seventh chancellor in those 16 years. And No. 8 likely won’t be far behind.
Bley-Vroman, a major force in reshaping the department in the wake of the NCAA inquiry, has declined to be considered for an additional appointment (he said he will return to teaching and eventually take a sabbatical). Regents are scheduled to discuss the position in executive session Thursday.
All the while a 20-member “search advisory committee” that was impaneled in April has been charged with making a recommendation on a full-time chancellor sometime before the end of the fall semester.
If you are counting, that could make five chancellors — interim or full-time — in seven years by the time a permanent one is ensconced in Hawaii Hall.
Small wonder that athletics has often suffered from hit or miss oversight over the years. Or, that no workable fiscal model has been installed.
Athletics, of course, occupies only a fraction of a chancellor’s duties, and none of the office holders have come from an athletics background. Their expertise varied — from geophysics, North African economies, virology and magnetic resonance to linguistics.
Which means they have either had to become quickly acclimated to the athletic role or been totally dependent on the athletic directors they are charged with supervising.
Bley-Vroman, in his two years, has been both the quickest study and most hands-on. This after inheriting a smoldering five-month-old NCAA investigation.
In the first 14 months he oversaw the firing of Gib Arnold, the departures of AD Ben Jay, Benjy Taylor and Norm Chow and the hirings of men’s basketball coach Eran Ganot, AD David Matlin and football coach Nick Rolovich.
The decision to terminate Arnold under “without cause” provisions of the contract is one UH is still paying heavily for. Though you might wonder how much of it can be laid at the doorstep of the university’s attorneys given the ensuing turnover at the Office of General Counsel.
“I look back with satisfaction at the progress we’ve made over the past two years in Hawai‘i athletics,” Bley-Vroman said in an email. “The road has not always been easy, and there are certainly challenges ahead, but we’re on the right track.”
Now, we wait to see who will take it from there.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
