Offensive coordinator Zak Hill was introduced at the University of Hawaii as someone who set passing and scoring records at Eastern Washington.
It turns out the one — and only — record he will set as at UH is for the shortest stay ever by an assistant coach in any sport: 48 days.
Zak, we hardly knew ya’.
Announced amid much promise and considerable fanfare Dec. 10 he was out the door and off to Boise State’s blue yonder turf by Wednesday, giving new meaning to the term “fly pattern.” Hollywood marriages last longer.
He hardly had time to find the H-1 on-ramps much less diagram anything for the record book. A UH official said Hill’s family and furniture had yet to make it to Manoa.
By those standards Norm Parrish’s short-lived stay as Eran Ganot’s top assistant basketball coach this summer almost made him a long-time resident at all of 90-something days.
So UH fans are fully entitled to feel let down or betrayed, should they so choose. But they should not be surprised. Not in the present landscape.
The fact of the matter is this is life at the college football poker table where the haves and have-nots become more stratified with each TV contract.
North Carolina State, a Power Five conference school with considerable resources, needed a new offensive coordinator, so the Wolfpack lured Eliah Drinkwitz from Boise State with a $450,000, three-year contract dwarfing what the Broncos paid.
Boise State, which is at the top of the non-Power Five food chain, was paying Drinkwitz about $300,000 with a two-year deal.
That’s more than anybody else in the middling’ Mountain West Conference pays out and tops the one-year deal for about half that Hill was to get at UH, where the salary scale for the position is listed at $116,640-$203,688.
Boise State has a $2.1 million salary pool for its assistants. UH pays about $1.2 million, even that stretching the bounds of its meager budget.
Then, too, Boise State is not so much a stepping stone for careers as a time-proven launching pad. Three of their most recent coordinators have gone on to jobs at Notre Dame, Texas and Florida. The last offensive coordinator UH lost to a better deal was, what, Paul Johnson to Navy, 22 years ago?
So when UH head coach Nick Rolovich said Wednesday, “Zak made the decision in the best interest of him and his family…” this is what he was speaking of. Hill did not return calls to the Star-Advertiser.
The scary thing is that once upon a time UH rarely lost coaches to teams in its own league. Being hijacked by the Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12 and others of the deep pockets and higher visibility was one thing. But in successive years now fellow conference members have boosted a good defensive coordinator, Kevin Clune to Utah State, and, now a promising offensive coordinator, Hill, before he had coached a game at Aloha Stadium.
It is worth noting that Clune is now at Oregon State, a Power Five conference school.
So it is fine to be feel jilted by Hill’s departure. Curse his lack of commitment, if you like. But surprise should no longer be part of the equation.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@star advertiser.com or 529-4820.
