Under terms of his contract, Norm Chow is due $337,499.99 for being relieved as the University of Hawaii’s head football coach before the conclusion of his five-year contract.
Chow’s firing was announced Sunday morning, 15 hours after the Rainbow Warriors lost their seventh game of the season, a 58-7 defeat by Air Force that assured a fourth consecutive losing season on his watch with four games remaining.
Chow, who had an annual base salary of $550,000, had one more year, 2016, remaining on the agreement. He was 10-36 at UH, his only head coaching job.
According to the contract, he is due $200,000 for 2016 in addition to 90 days’ notice, which amounts to $137,499.99. He is also due accrued vacation.
His predecessor, Greg McMackin, accepted a $600,000 buyout of a $1.1 million deal in 2011.
UH officials said they are not immediately able to say how much the buyout of Chow’s coaching staff might cost since it has yet to be determined how many of the nine full-time assistants might be retained by a new coach. Most assistants have contracts running through March.
Athletic director David Matlin said the new head coach, whom he hopes to name by mid-December at the latest, will be asked to interview all current assistants but will be able to select his own staff.
Although UH has yet to advertise a salary for the current opening, indications are the new head coach will likely receive a salary less than what Chow was making.
"Of course, if the (next) Knute Rockne comes along and needs a little more, we might go a little higher," said a UH official familiar with the process.
A salary scale set last year by the UH Board of Regents lists a scale of $392,142 to $935,544 for the position.
As of the start of the season, the average head coaching salary in the Mountain West Conference was approximately $680,000. Only two, San Jose State’s Ron Caragher ($525,000) and Nevada-Las Vegas’ Tony Sanchez ($500,000), had salaries listed lower than that of Chow.
Sanchez, who had previously been a high school coach, is in his first season.
Speculation so far surrounds former UH assistant Duane Akina, now an assistant at Stanford; Dino Babers, a former UH player who is head coach at Bowling Green; Ivin Jasper, a former UH quarterback and an assistant at Navy; June Jones, who remains UH’s most successful football coach; former UH player and coach Rich Miano; and, among others, former UH quarterback and assistant Nick Rolovich.
UH will advertise the position for five days, and Matlin said "we are probably going to continue it because my anticipation is we might not have the whole candidate pool until the (regular) season is over. So, we want to be agile enough that we can start the process now, prepare, let people know, but we realize that some people might not let us know until the end of November or early December."
Matlin said he will choose the name that is submitted to Manoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman for approval.
Approval by the Board of Regents is required only when a contract exceeds three years or a salary tops $500,000, an athletic department representative said.
Matlin said he will not name a selection committee, but will have an advisory group of four to six people, mostly made up of UH specialists in compliance, academics and other areas to vet candidates.
"They will be task-assigned, and they will have a focus to work on and, at the end of the day, I will make the decision," Matlin said. "I may ask their opinions, but I will not be tied to their opinion. I will own the decision."
