"And, next, we’ll go see the, uh … ," athletic director Ben Jay told members of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents in January, struggling to keep all the campus sports facility names in order.

On the job for only a matter of weeks at the time, Jay was still learning his own way around the lower campus when he began shepherding regents on a tour.

The urgency was an early sign of the priority he had assigned to upgrading the chronically declining athletic facilities at the school and the crusade-like zeal he has come to place on doing something about it.

Tom Shigemoto, one of the regents on the tour, later told board members that some UH athletic facilities were in "deplorable condition."

Meanwhile, football coach Norm Chow waits for a renovated football locker room. One that he has said he was told last year would be under construction the day the 2012 football season ended and be ready well before summer. At this point, UH officials said, there is no indication whether it might even be done in September after the season has started.

Softball coach Bob Coolen measures his words about the improvements he has been told would be taking place at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium. "We’ve been asking for some of those things for 15 years," Coolen said.

Recently, Jay forwarded to Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple and others a prioritized "wish list" of nine leading candidates for capital improvement funds, including improvements to the softball stadium and plans for the renovation and makeover of aging Klum Gym into a sports performance center.

They are above and beyond the $12 million appropriated for current projects, such as the completion of the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex, which is currently under way on the former Cooke Field, and the recently finished women’s locker rooms and Nagatani Academic Center expansion.

Estimates on the "wish list" range from $10 million to, perhaps, several times that.

"They are the kind of things that (prospective) students come here and take a look at," Jay said. "They are what we recruit to. If we want to bring in great recruits, we have to pay attention to our facilities."

AS THE SENIOR associate AD at Ohio State, Jay oversaw finance and operations, including construction, renovation and operations of facilities for 36 sports and nearly 1,000 athletes.

Staffers who worked with him at Ohio State say facilities were more than just a part of his job description.

"He was in them so often, it was like he lived in them," said Don Patko, assistant AD for facility operations.

When asked what her father did for a living in Columbus, Ohio, one of Jay’s daughters is reported to have said, "He goes to watch sports."

At UH, which has a budget $100 million less than that of the well-heeled Buckeyes of the Big Ten Conference, Jay said he knew facilities would be an issue, yet he said he was unprepared for what he found when he began to walk the halls and inspect the nooks and crannies after arrival.

His frequent tweets on the subject — "Going to Home Depot & buying several cases of replacement light bulbs myself. Will find a ladder & do this myself. Can’t sit idlely (sic). Embarrassing" — have raised the level of conversation about facilities.

But some tweets — "My staff knows when I see something broken and it obviously hasn’t been fixed in a long time, I’m impatient. THIS IS OUR HOUSE!" — have also rubbed some on campus the wrong way.

As one upper campus official put it privately, "He needs to tone some of his tweets down and go worry about his teams."

Jay said he believes he has the support of Apple.

"This is not just about athletics," Jay said. "I mean, I think people around the university and on the campus know we have to deal with some facility issues, not just in athletics, but on the academics side (of campus). That has been the focus of what Tom has said as well. We are speaking the same language when it comes to that."

Here, at UH, Jay says, "(facilities) don’t have to be fancy. They just have to be functional, efficient and clean. That’s been my point. It was the same emphasis we had at Ohio State, where we were going to provide (athletes) what they needed. It didn’t have to be the Taj Mahal."

WHEN THE WARRIORS football team was on its march to an unbeaten 12-0 regular season in 2007 and eventual Sugar Bowl berth, UH gained almost as much national attention for the plight of its facilities and funding as its fast-break offense.

ESPN sportscasters made considerable comment on the state of the facilities during the nationally televised victory over Boise State, and quarterback Colt Brennan’s complaints about a lack of soap in the locker room were carried far and wide.

Virginia Hinshaw, the incoming Manoa Chancellor, described campus facilities generally as "badly tarnished physically" in her 2007 inaugural address.

Two months later, when head coach June Jones was tendered an offer from Southern Methodist University, UH officials scrambled to make a counteroffer, one that included the pledge to work for $25 million in athletic facility upgrades.

Jones was but the latest in a series of football coaches to campaign for improved facilities. Bob Wagner (1987-95) addressed the needs in his 1993 book, "Getting the Edge."

When Jones left for SMU, campus officials termed improvements a high priority for athletics and elsewhere on campus.

But, as the state’s economic growth slowed, funds shrank and maintenance, much less renovation and construction, was put off.

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PRIORITIES can take on land-mine explosiveness at UH, where there is only so much money to go around and there are so many competing interests.

Jay’s predecessor, Jim Donovan, who oversaw more than $20 million in capital improvement allocations in three-plus years on the job, ran afoul of some powerful regents when legislators backed a sports facility over a non-athletic project that the administration had given a higher priority.

Despite Donovan’s protestations that he had not gone behind the administration’s back to campaign with lawmakers, he was severely chastised in a very public Bachman Hall encounter when a sports facility found legislative backing.

On the flip side, legislators roasted Donovan’s predecessor, Herman Frazier, in a 2007 Capitol hearing for not following through on the department’s needs when CIP funds were being discussed.

After the NCAA handed out softball regional bids, Coolen noted wistfully, "You look at the stadiums that are hosting and they are probably the nicest facilities in the country. The (top) teams are constantly upgrading."

It has allowed them to do more than host championships; it has lured talented players to propel them there.

"When you bring in recruits, there is what I like to call the ‘wow! factor,’ " Coolen said. "They say, ‘This is a nice place and I can see myself coming to school here’ because the draw is softball and the academics."

Coolen, who has delivered the Rainbow Wahine to 11 NCAA postseasons without hosting, says he isn’t looking for palatial.

"We’d just like some restrooms for the players, umpire changing rooms, film room and roofing that can weather some of the mauka showers," Coolen said.

The facility seats 1,200, but, maybe, 200 are protected from rain.

Since Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium opened in 1998, players, umpires, fans and others on campus have had to share the same restroom located outside the stadium, adjacent to the soccer and football practice fields. Players frequently have to ask to cut in front of the lines in order to get back on the field in time for play to continue.

The current CIP funds allow $2.4 million for softball, UH officials say, but all of it is listed as "design only."

Coolen said, "There has been no fast track for our facilities. It seems like our CIP projects were never elevated to fruition. They were low on the totem pole while other things got done."

Coolen, who has spent 22 years as head coach at UH, said he was happy that new lights are being installed after a 15-year wait, but wonders, "Is that how long some of these things are going to take, 15 years? Well, if it is 15 years, then, I’m going to be out the door and the next coach will have to worry about it."