The University of Hawaii athletic department has real and pressing financial problems, but is blackmailing its declining constituency the way it wants to go about fixing them right now?

You have to wonder, because that’s how Manoa chancellor Tom Apple’s clumsy pay-up-or-maybe-we’ll-close-up comments Monday are being perceived.

Apple told Ka Leo O Hawaii, the student newspaper, "If we’re not breaking even (financially) in three years, I really have to look at whether we will continue Division IA athletics."

"I will be looking for those other forms of support for athletics to really see that there are people who really do care," Apple told Ka Leo. "There’s one thing to say, ‘Go Warriors!’ It’s another to say, ‘Go Warriors — here’s my money!’ "

In March, Apple told the Star-Advertiser he intended to seek the retirement of an $11.3 million accumulated deficit and would present at the Board of Regents’ May meeting (next week) a financial plan that "works toward" ending future deficits. He said, "I think we have a pretty solid plan going forward."

Tell, us, please, that threatening to scuttle athletics isn’t the whole of his "plan."

Not for the first time are folks puzzled by the statements from Hawaii Hall. A year ago, Apple drooled about the Pac-12 Conference, saying, "I won’t go dreaming about where we might be, but there is a really good conference on the West Coast that it would be wonderful to be part of, eventually."

Now, is he alluding to PacWest membership?

Requests to Apple for elucidation Monday were not answered.

So, we’re left to wonder whether these comments are a white flag of surrender or, perhaps, a warning shot across the bow of the regents in advance of next week’s meeting?

Either way, the fear is they will turn off more people than they inspire, that dire threats will adversely affect recruiting and donations.

What is bottom-line certain is that athletics has an $11.3 million deficit since 2002, and will likely end the current fiscal year next month closer to $13 million with no relief in sight.

The financial model is badly broken, with UH spending approximately $33.5 million annually when the over/under on being competitive, given its geography, is more like $40 million. UH is also 10th among 12 Mountain West Conference football members in subsidies received.

Those are real numbers, requiring a rolling up of the sleeves to produce real solutions.

Meanwhile, Apple is, apparently, asking students to ante up and the faculty to acquiesce on funding, telling Ka Leo, "As students, are you gonna come to the games? Are you willing to pitch in to help athletics? If, in the end, this kind of three-year window, we don’t see support … students say we don’t wanna pay more; faculty say we don’t want money coming from academics to go to athletes; then the message I will get is that, ‘Well, it may be the only game in town, but it’s not an important one.’ Then, we’ll make the decision."

As State Rep. K. Mark Takai put it, "We need to build the base back up. We need to bring everybody back together and I don’t think people come back with threats."

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.