The athletic department was facing an evolving landscape.
The football program did not have an NCAA-certified stadium.
The existing facilities needed upgrades.
“Sound familiar?” said Frank Brogan, noting how Florida Atlantic’s challenges 20 years ago are similar to the University of Hawaii’s current situation.
Under the then leadership of President Brogan, athletic director Craig Angelos, and football coach Howard Schnellenberger, FAU built a 30,000-seat, on-campus stadium while maintaining competitive programs in baseball and swimming and diving.
“All boats rise, if you will,” said Brogan, who also had served two terms as Florida’s lieutenant governor under Jeb Bush and chaired Florida State University’s 12-school system.
In an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Brogan expressed confidence that Angelos, Long Island University’s senior director of athletics, will lead UH as athletic director in raising revenue, improving facilities and providing support for the 21 sports.
On Friday, UH President David Lassner nominated Angelos for the athletic director’s position that opened when David Matlin announced he would retire June 2. UH’s Board of Regents will vote on the nomination at Thursday’s meeting at Honolulu Community College.
Brogan recalled how Angelos emerged from a large pool of candidates to be selected as FAU’s athletic director. “He proved to be better than we hoped he would be,” Brogan said. “First of all, he’s a first-class human being. He’s as good as he seems. He has the most wonderful family — six children, a wife — and they are like the von Trapp family (from “The Sound of Music”). They came right off the movie screen.”
But Angelos, if approved, will inherit a department with limited private donations and a frosty relationship with several lawmakers who have cut capital-improvement funding to UH’s flagship campus.
To build FAU Stadium, school officials worked out a deal to share money earmarked for on-campus housing. The rest of the money came from donations, mostly from biotech companies.
“They gave us, if you will, the collateral to start that stadium,” Brogan said, “so we didn’t have to wait until all the money is in the bank. And then, of course, we raised the money to finish it off with donors.”
But there is no extra money to siphon to jump-start UH athletic department projects, such as rebuilding the baseball team’s batting facility or replacing Les Murakami Stadium’s turf, as well as completing expansion at the Ching Complex, where the home football games are played. Also, UH has a nonvoting seat on the Aloha Stadium Authority, which is seeking to replace the Halawa facility that has been self-condemned for spectator-attended events since December 2020.
Brogan said Angelos is up to the challenge of dealing with financial constraints, seeking donations and retaining and forming partnerships.
“He works like a Trojan,” Brogan said. “He was there early and doesn’t leave until late. … As far as fundraising, he is not afraid to fundraise. In fact, he seems to enjoy it, which is not an easy thing for those of us who raise money for schools. We know how tough it is. He really did a good job with, and that was made evident by the amount of money he raised when I was (at FAU).”
Angelos has been to Aloha Stadium at least once, and it was a pleasant experience for him. When he was athletic director at FAU, the Owls traveled 4,847 miles to play football at Hawaii on Sept. 4, 2004 — and won 35-28.
“I remember Timmy Chang was still the quarterback,” Brogan said. “We were sitting near the end zone where the winning touchdown was scored.”
Chang, who later that season would break NCAA career passing records for yards, touchdowns and interceptions, is now UH’s head coach.
While the Owls were upsetting the Warriors, Hurricane Frances was battering Florida’s eastern coast. That caused havoc with FAU’s return itinerary.
“It’s really like planning for a bowl game except that instead of having a month to get ready you have to do it in one day. We got everything set except the flight plan,” Angelos told the Palm Beach Post at the time. “It’s going to be a long trip, but it always seems shorter if you win.”
Angelos is also familiar with at least two UH on-campus athletic facilities.
He played at what is now Les Murakami Stadium — in 1986, when it was called Rainbow Stadium and the man it was named for still coached the ’Bows. Angelos started at first base for BYU and batted .341 that season, including .400 (4-for-10) in a three-game series at UH.
More recently, on Feb. 22 and 24, Angelos is believed to have been among the crowd at SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center when the fledgling LIU men’s volleyball team was swept twice by two-time defending national champion Hawaii.
Angelos was a star athlete at Skyline High School in Salt Lake City, graduating in 1980. He played running back for the state champions in 1979, and was named state Most Valuable Player in the 4-A division (Utah’s largest schools) by the Salt Lake Tribune.
He also started on the basketball team, and was all-state in baseball.
After a religious mission to Virginia, attaining a bachelor’s degree from BYU and playing a year of pro baseball in Italy, Angelos earned a law degree from Creighton. He then worked at a law firm in Los Angeles.
That legal experience and a stint working for the NCAA helped Angelos when he was hired by the University of Miami. He started there in 1994 as an assistant athletic director, and the Hurricanes program gave him plenty to do in his role as the athletic department’s NCAA compliance officer.
Angelos led an internal investigation stemming from a former academic adviser being imprisoned for helping falsify $240,263 in Pell Grants for 91 students from 1985 to 1991, including 85 student-athletes.
Angelos investigated other NCAA allegations involving drug-testing programs and improper payments to football players. The NCAA investigation determined that the football program had made $400,000 of improper payments to players in addition to the Pell Grants. Miami lost 31 scholarships and was banned from postseason play from 1996 through 1998.
Angelos remained at Miami until January 2001, ascending to the position of senior associate athletic director. He worked a similar job at Indiana, before accepting the athletic director position at FAU.
After his contract was not renewed at FAU in 2012, he worked as second-in-command at several other Division I athletic departments including LIU, where he started last year.
