One of the first responses I got Friday evening after relaying the news of Todd Graham’s resignation on social media was these seven words.

“Honorable thing to do give Graham credit.”

I’ll say this, until I know more: … Yes, perhaps we can call it “honorable,” because this prevents a situation that would have gotten worse and worse.

According to the email announcement from UH’s media relations director, Derek Inouchi, because Graham officially left by his own decision and not UH’s “aside from normal reimbursements and compensation earned, no additional monies will be owed to the coach.”

It’s still important for the public to know exactly what “normal reimbursements and compensation earned” means. (This is something the Board of Regents can ask at its meeting next week.)

I want to believe — and will for now — that there’s no sketchiness involved, like when Greg McMackin “retired” as UH football coach a year before his contract ended, left with $500,000 and was allowed to say he “donated” the other half of his $1 million salary to the program when in reality he was being fired.

But, this is a time to be happy and grateful.

This means that we don’t have to in effect cough up dollar-dollar to pay a $1.2 million buyout for firing without cause; a state senator suggested that the Legislature could make that payment from state funds. That would have been disastrous.

There are at least as many people out there who see $800,000 as a crazy salary to pay a college football coach because they think it’s way too much as there are those who see it as insane because it’s far from enough.

>> RELATED: UH head coach Todd Graham resigns

The latter know the business dynamics of the sport make that a bargain-basement price for an FBS Division I coach, and the former see it as money better spent on things like social services — you know, like feeding hungry people.

The state is flush right now with undistributed COVID relief funds. And a few years ago UH revealed it has (or used to have) a buyout fund it dipped into when a settlement had to be reached to pay basketball coach Gib Arnold to go away. (Remember, when the school missed a layup of a for-cause firing due to a poorly written contract and acted like it had hit a game-winning 3-pointer?)

But no matter which pile of money $1.2 million would come out of, it still would’ve been state resources to pay a coach not to work.

The healing for the program started even before we got word of Graham’s exit. Star safety Khoury Bethley announced he’d return for a fifth season earlier in the day.

And Jacob Yoro is a good choice for interim head coach. He’s from here and was on the previous coaching staff, and is experienced, liked and respected. Victor Santa Cruz, Kim McCloud and Abe Elimimian are former UH players who bleed green and are good coaches who are even better men, and will also be key figures going forward.

As for how to choose a permanent new coach?

Well, we’ve seen it go bad both ways: When it’s done by committee the members point fingers at each other when a hire goes bad, and no one takes accountability. But when the AD makes the choice himself with just “advisers,” it’s less of a certainty red flags and blind spots are identified.

The new coach is going to have to be someone willing to rebuild with a program that just lost a bunch of its best players and has the most incredibly messed up stadium situation anyone has ever seen.

One thing this saga shows is what so many of us already knew: Hawaii is such a unique place that if you bring in someone with no experience with the culture, you’re really rolling the dice — no matter how good a record and how much experience the guy might have elsewhere.

It’s time to take the time to get it right.

And to keep in mind the hard-earned lessons that “player’s coach” can no longer be something every coach says he is but is in reality only for some players. And “tough disciplinarian” can’t be a euphemism for “jerk who refuses to adapt to new realities,” where the student-athletes have more leverage than ever before and the line between “hard coaching” and “abuse” is in a way different place than where it used to be.

Even if only half of the nasty things said about Todd Graham are true, he was Urban Meyer, minus the national championships. And even if a coach can win half of his games in his first two seasons under the most trying conditions in the nation, you just can’t act like that.

Not here, not now.

But it appears from what we know now that he is leaving in the best way possible for everyone, given the circumstances.

In his farewell words, some of you probably aren’t happy because you didn’t see “sorry.” But if not stubbornly fighting for $1.2 million of our money is his way of apologizing, I can forgive.

Moving forward, however, UH cannot forget.