Embracing the UH challenge

Your first suggestion that David Matlin has an inkling of the challenges he is undertaking as the University of Hawaii’s new athletic director is in how he prepared for his first day on the job Monday.

He spent part of last week whitewater rafting and hiking mountains.

A sense of adventure should come in handy when taking over a position occupied by three others in the previous 36 months.

It is an assignment that his boss, Manoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman, once described as requiring "someone who can walk on water." Alas, Matlin confesses he can’t do that but was pleased to report that while hiking in the Mount Baker Range and rafting the Skykomish River in Washington, "at least I didn’t end up in the river, where it was 40 degrees."

Bringing stability to this state’s only major college athletic program in one of its most turbulent periods, amid an NCAA investigation and prolonged budget crisis, is Job One for the 50-year-old former executive director of the Hawaii Bowl and Diamond Head Classic.

"We don’t need the constant turnover, we need some continuity," Matlin said. "That’s been a challenge lately."

On the flight home from Seattle on Saturday night Matlin said a passenger engaged him in a discussion "about a certain coaching situation and making a change." Matlin said, "People think it is easy, all you have to do is make changes. I think it is more important to foster an environment where people thrive. That should be the first objective."

Matlin, who goes from running maybe a $7 million, four-person enterprise to calling the shots on a $32 million, 350-member staff serving nearly 450 students, was eager to embrace it Monday, leaving his Aina Haina home as the sun was peeking over Hawaii Loa Ridge.

Pulling his car out of a driveway where a sign read, "Hawaii Fans Parking Only," Matlin made the drive into Manoa contemplating a week that begins with discussion on UH’s response to seven NCAA allegations of wrongdoing in its men’s basketball program and a detailed budget briefing and will conclude Sunday with meetings with Mountain West and Big West conference members in California and Arizona.

In between there will be meetings with his administrative team, staff and athletes representing UH’s 21 teams.

First, however, he had to gain entrance to the darkened athletic department foyer, where Colsen Kanei arrived to open the door, greeting him with a hearty "Welcome home!" after a 15-year absence.

His first impression now that he is in charge: "It (the athletic department) looks bigger than before," Matlin said.

When he started his UH employment as a casual hire in the marketing department in the 1990s, Matlin said, he once fancied the thought of someday occupying office 105, where his name plate was posted Monday. "It was a fleeting thought. I was young, naive and from the mainland and that thought went away in about two weeks," Matlin said.

He remembers well his first week on the job, when Hugh Yoshida was made the full-time AD and a subordinate presented Yoshida with two of the most valuable gifts anyone in the position at UH could have, "a box of (aspirin) and a bottle of scotch."

The memory was not lost on Matlin in the wake of Ben Jay’s ouster. Not until just before the application deadline two months ago did Matlin finally decide to apply for the AD job at UH.

"It wasn’t the very last minute, but it was close enough," Matlin said. "I wrestled with it (the decision). It was a family decision and it had to be because you’re in a very public forum. But my kids are older (a daughter at Notre Dame and a son at Punahou) and my wife (Dana) basically said, ‘Go for it.’ She has been super supportive."

Matlin said, "At the end of the day, in life, you want to go for something rather than regret the things you didn’t do."

Like taking on the untamed challenge that UH has become.

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