The moral of Shakespeare’s first play appears to be a men-before-hens theme.

It was not The Bard’s finest work.

But that’s the thing about debut performances. Sometimes you get a classic, sometimes you get the Beatles’ “Besame Mucho.” Almost all the time you get a second chance. And, maybe, a third.

There was much hype surrounding Timmy Chang’s first game as head coach of the University of Hawaii football team. It was the Island Son’s return to his alma mater, where he was a record-setting quarterback in the early 2000s. With the Rainbow Warriors emerging from the dysfunction of predecessor Todd Graham’s leadership during the pandemic, Chang embraced the fresh-start unity of the “Braddahhood.” And then — pffft — the Rainbow Warriors’ 63-10 loss to Vanderbilt in Saturday’s opener happened.

History has not always favored UH football debuts. Otto “Proc” Klum won a program-record 84 games, but not his debut on Oct. 10, 1921, falling to something called Honolulu AC.

In the first UH game at Aloha Stadium in 1975, Texas A&I rolled to a 43-9 victory. The Javelinas’ head coach, Gil Steinke, called the plays from amongst the 32,247 people in the stands. Texas A&I is now Texas A&M-Kingsville.

New Mexico spoiled Dick Tomey’s first game in 1977. USC doused June Jones’ debut in 1999 and Norm Chow’s first UH game in 2012. Florida routed the Warriors in Greg McMackin’s initial game in 2008. In a back-to-the-future game in 2016, Nick Rolovich’s Warriors went to the land Down Under and across the international date line only to fall to California.

Stumbling starts are not exclusive to coaches. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney from his first job. Several publishers rejected J.K. Rowling’s manuscript about a boy wizard named Harry Potter. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

One of the greatest athletes of the 20th century — Secretariat — placed fourth as a 2-year-old thoroughbred in his debut in a maiden race in 1972.

The I’ll-never-let-you-go version of the Titanic in 1997 had grown viewers salting their popcorn with their tears. But of the 17 featured films on the ill-fated ship, the initial one had the least impact. A fire destroyed the only prints of the 1912 movie.

In his UFC debut in 2012, Max Holloway, as an injury replacement, lost his debut fight via submission to Dustin Poirier.

Bob Wagner, who was 58-49-3 in nine seasons as UH head coach, studied the telecast of Saturday’s game, concluding the Warriors are capable of being successful this season. He noted the two fumble returns for touchdowns, the elusiveness of Vanderbilt quarterback Mike Wright, and some defensive lapses as factors in the one-sided outcome.

“In the course of a season, you’re lucky if there’s one play where the ball gets out of somebody’s hands and somebody runs it in for a touchdown, let alone two in one game,” Wagner said. “I doubt they’ll see a better athlete (than Wright) this season. And there are a lot of things that are very correctable, that I noticed, especially on defense.”

Wagner added: “Things are never as good or as bad as they appear, especially to the fans. They have to stay the course, get better, not be too hard on yourself as a coach, not be too hard on your players, but be demanding. There are a lot of things they can do that don’t have anything to do with personnel or scheme, per se, but execution of the scheme.”

Jones also echoed the belief UH needs to stick to its plan. It worked for Jones, whose Warriors rebounded to win nine of their next 12 after that opening loss in 1999.

Saturday’s UH game is a reminder the best plans are not always the first. In 1943, Richard James was unsuccessful in trying to design springs that could keep ship equipment steady at sea. One of the samples accidentally fell, then began to move, end over end. And that is how the Slinky was created.