The new athletic director becomes less new each day.
"I love living here and being part of the culture," said Ben Jay, Tuesday night on 1420-AM’s "Call The Coach" show. "I’m learning about it every day."
But some of the lessons are pretty tough. Like the one about how Aloha Stadium is not there to serve you, but the other way around.
Jay is an idea person. One of his better ones so far was to shut down a good chunk of 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium for football games when the Warriors are not expected to draw anything close to capacity. So, for this upcoming season, that means pretty much all of them except USC.
The thinking was that UH could save some of the expense money that it pays the stadium. Yes, we all know it’s ridiculous that one state entity must pay another for use of a state facility. But until that gets fixed someday, hopefully soon, Jay has to figure out how to cut into the more than $90,000 average UH pays Aloha Stadium per football game for everything from restroom attendants to electricity.
I refer to this idea in the past tense because it’s dead.
"I was told we’d only save $1,700 a game," Jay said, shaking his head. "It’s not worth it. It isn’t worth the headache of moving all those season-ticket holders around."
It’s a joke that this kind of thing even has to be considered.
I asked Jay if he can get some help from Gov. Neil Abercrombie. He has pledged assistance to UH athletics on numerous occasions, especially when it comes to facilities.
"He’s thinking big picture," Jay said. "The governor still wants to build another stadium, and that would be nice, 30-35,000 seats."
There are the questions of funding, and location, of course.
And, for Jay, "That doesn’t help me in the next five years."
Then there’s the especially unsavory part about the stadium selling advertising and naming rights.
"What do you think they’re selling? They’re selling UH football. What are the sponsors buying? They’re buying UH athletics," said Jay, answering his own questions.
And the money goes to Aloha Stadium, not UH athletics.
It would be easier to live with that if the athletic department got at least ledger credit for that. As "Call The Coach" host Bobby Curran noted, it would go a long way toward evening up the UH revenues and expenses.
Jay has plenty of other plans and ideas, like getting relief from upper campus on being charged for out-of-state scholarships.
Taking over Rainbowtique — or at least getting credit for what is sold there — is way overdue.
"The merchandising piece is very troublesome," Jay said.
He said Tuesday that football season-ticket prices won’t go up this year … but don’t be surprised if pay-per-view does. "I’m a little concerned with how easy it is to buy the TV package," he said.
We knew all this, but it’s good there’s a new guy in town to remind us how messed up it is, how bureaucracy and self-importance get in the way of cooperation and common-sense solutions. Remember how long it took to get rid of AstroTurf?
"They have to operate the stadium the way they do," said Ben Jay, the not-so-new athletic director. "But it’s a broken business plan."
