Whether you consider it good news or bad, University of Hawaii football coach Norm Chow isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
And not just because Chow took his foot out of his mouth Monday in an attempt to spin himself away from the ill-advised “I’m too old for this …” comments at Utah State.
If you didn’t know them already, here are a few “Chow facts” to consider in this whole equation: He is mule-headed stubborn, he tosses dollar bills around like manhole covers and he is prone to letting petulance get the better of him.
One of the avowed reasons Chow, now 67, took the UH job was to leave a legacy in his home state after decades of coaching on the mainland. It meant something to be the first Asian-American head coach of a major college program, and he wanted to leave his mark here, where it all began. So much that he never really kicked the tires.
And 3-17 (1-13 Mountain West) over two years isn’t the result he had in mind. So, like the old lineman he is, Chow plugs on, driven by pride. The more he hears that he can’t do something, the more he digs in, determined to prove that he can. In tough times in the past, such tenacity has served him well.
Other times, as in consecutive plunges into the middle of the line, it hasn’t.
Problem is that he sometimes vents his frustrations, saying what he thinks without thinking what he is saying.
What he could once say as an aside while he was an assistant is more compelling as a head coach — particularly one laboring through a winless season.
BE ASSURED that, barring health reasons or family considerations, Chow is not walking away from the $550,000 annual salary when he has three years remaining on the contract after this season. Not willingly, anyway.
UH administrators buffalloed Chow’s predecessor, Greg McMackin, into taking a $600,000 settlement on his remaining $1.1 million, but that isn’t happening with Chow. They would owe Chow $1.3 million if they fired him after this season, and you had better believe that his son Carter, a Los Angeles attorney and sports agent, would be at Bachman Hall’s front door demanding payment.
Chow got a reported $500,000 buyout from UCLA after the parting with Rick Neuheisel and $1.2 million from the Tennessee Titans. If they couldn’t nickel and dime him, what chance does UH have?
That’s even if the school had the nickels and dimes, which it doesn’t. The athletic department is looking at another $1 million plus deficit this year and Chow, who chafes at all the things his program can’t afford, knows the parsimony better than most.
Not to overlook that State Sen. Donna Kim and the legislature will have scalps hanging from the flagpole on University Avenue and Dole Street if the terms “state money” and “buyout” are even hinted at.
As for boosters buying out Chow, there’s not enough booster money coming in at the moment to send him to Palolo Valley.
For better or worse, Chow — like his 0-8 team — isn’t going anywhere soon.
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
