Even before he was a short-timer, Bob Coolen was never afraid to speak his mind.

The 34-year University of Hawaii softball coach is set to retire after this season, or so he says. If he does, Coolen will still be an interested observer in two years when most of UH’s sports exit the Big West and join the football team in the Mountain West.

His bottom-line assessment for the stick-and-ball squads:

“(Softball) can win it,” he said. “Rich said they can win it every year.”

Rich is UH baseball coach Rich Hill. You could tell him his team was moving to the American League East and he’d say the same thing, and get you to believe it, too.

“If Bob said it, it’s probably true,” Hill said.

And you know what? It is.

Of course, Hill will need to mold a team that takes advantage of high-altitude venues as much as it does pitcher-friendly Les Murakami Stadium. That’s been done before, by the man the home park is named after; Coach Les’ lineup was loaded with sluggers when UH played in the WAC, and the Rainbows won their share of 12-9 light-air road games.

BYU first baseman Craig Angelos played in a few of those. Now UH’s athletic director, Angelos — with help from university president David Lassner— engineered this deal that he hopes brings stability to all of the school’s sports programs.

One problem is that four teams, including men’s volleyball, the school’s most successful and popular of recent years, are in limbo until and unless the Big West says they can stay. The MPSF is a good secondary landing spot, but it still defeats the purpose if consolidation is a goal.

Angelos admits the Mountain West brand doesn’t have the same cachet as the Pac-12; and that remains true, with the new Pac’s raid of the Mountain netting three of its four schools that sent teams to last spring’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, including football king Boise State.

How much that matters in the long-run remains to be seen. The real question for Hawaii is this: Is joining what’s left of the Mountain an improvement over remaining in the Big West?

As it often does in sports, it depends on adjustments.

Tomorrow’s Mountain West is a watered-down version of yesteryear’s WAC. But you’ve still got altitude to factor in at Air Force (7,258 feet), New Mexico (5,312) and Nevada (4,505).

They don’t have a baseball team at Wyoming these days, but the UH basketball teams will play at Laramie, which is 7,165 feet above sea level.

Men’s basketball coach Eran Ganot was an assistant with the Rainbow Warriors when they were in the WAC, but this was after the breakaway in 1998, when Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, San Diego State and UNLV jumped ship.

Altitude wasn’t as big a deal in the reformed WAC of two decades ago, but travel still was. When UCLA and other former Pac-12 schools whine about having to trek to the East Coast to play Rutgers, those who know UH’s history scoff and say one word (or is it two?) — LaTech.

“We’re used to doing hard things at the University of Hawaii,” said soccer coach Michele “Bud” Nagamine, whose team has recently made things look easy as it rides a wave of eight games without a loss.

Nagamine is stoked that the Wahine will be in the same conference as UNLV, and projects the same anyone, anytime, anywhere attitude as Hill.

So does women’s basketball coach Laura Beeman, whose team played in two of the past three NCAA Tournaments, and is the preseason favorite to win the Big West.

Beeman fears no challenge, but is also a realist. She knows that getting on and off two planes instead of one makes for a tougher road game.

It’s good to remember all of this doesn’t happen until 2026. If conference realignment has shown us anything, it’s that things can change as quickly as they seem to have been settled.

And UH’s coaches have what’s in front of them right now on their minds.

Ganot has to replace his top six scorers from a year ago. Hill is excited about Big West baseball’s rise to something close to its previous prominence and a conference tournament. And Beeman wants to prove the poll correct.

“Right now my sights are on the Big West,” she said.