UH football coach Rolovich is all business

Nick Rolovich is now about nine months into his role as head football coach of the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. The team’s opening game under his command is set for Aug. 27 in Sydney, Australia, against the California Golden Bears, and many UH sports fans are on the edges of their seats.

“People are hungry,” he said, recognizing that the team hasn’t had a winning season since 2010.

Fortunately for the fans, Rolovich is used to winning. As a quarterback, he led the Marin Catholic High School team in Kentfield, Calif., to two league championships; the City College of San Francisco to a national junior college title, in 1999; and UH, under Coach June Jones, to a 9-3 record, after taking over when the team was 1-3, in 2001. That was the season that ended with the exciting beatdown of rival Brigham Young University, 72-45. In 2002, he was a Hula Bowl MVP.

After UH, he joined the NFL’s Denver Broncos, which allocated him to NFL Europe. As QB of the Rhein Fire, he made it to the 2003 World Bowl, but the team lost and ended 6-5 — the first time he had been on a team with that many losses.

“It’s definitely been testing,” he said then.

Later he played for various teams in the Arena Football League, including the frequent league champion, the San Jose SaberCats.

While still in the AFL, he started his coaching career, first as quarterback coach for City College, then for UH starting in 2008. In 2010, Coach Greg McMackin also made him offensive coordinator. When Norm Chow became head coach in 2012, Rolovich moved on to the University of Nevada, where he ran its offense through the 2015 season.

Now back at UH, on a four-year contract that pays $400,000-$425,000 a year, Rolovich is hoping for better times for the Rainbow Warriors, whose four-year record under Chow was 10-36.

Just 37, Rolovich is married to the former Analea Donovan, with whom he has four children. They live in Manoa.

Question: If I were scouting for the Cal Golden Bears, what would I be telling them to expect when they play you guys in Sydney for the season opener? Are you still a fan of June Jones’ run-and-shoot?

Answer: Yeah, I’ll always be. I don’t know if you would consider us a full-fledged, pure run-and-shoot right now. I think there’s a pretty strong barrier with the run-and-shoot that doesn’t include tight ends. We’ve got some tight ends on the roster who will definitely have an impact on our offensive philosophy. So I don’t know if you would call it pure run-and-shoot at this moment. I’m trying to utilize everything we have as far as talent.

Q: Is there anybody you see who’s going to step up, maybe along the lines of former wide receivers Davone Bess or Greg Salas?

A: Well, that’d be nice. If anyone wants to become those guys, they’re welcome to.

There’s a real determination in a lot of the position groups, but I see the wide-receiver group having kind of a different mindset, something to prove. … I guess they’ve taken a lot of heat around here.

Q: For dropping the ball and stuff like that?

A: Yeah. And look — and I said this when I got hired — Norm Chow did too many great things in college football to recruit only receivers who don’t catch the ball. At the time they showed the ability to be productive wide receivers, whether it was on film or in person, so I think it was more of a mental issue with that group, that they needed a clean slate and a second chance. I think maybe there’s some hand-placement techniques that could be worked on, but for the most part I wanted them to feel like, “Hey, you guys caught the ball before, you’re gonna catch the ball again.”

Q: How does it benefit UH to be doing that game in Sydney? It’s a long way.

A: I think it was a combination of the promoters taking care of a lot of the expenses, and also, I think (UH Athletics Director) David Matlin was pretty smart because he’s throwing some coaches on the flight from other UH sports, and they won’t have to dip into their recruiting budgets to go down there. I think David Matlin has really brought us together in the Athletics Department; you feel everyone’s kind of part of it.

Q: We carried a story recently about how the Warriors do more traveling than just about any other team in the nation. Is that something you warn recruits about?

A: I make sure they know about it, but I don’t let our team use it as an excuse. That’s been the deal around here for a long time. We’re not moving any closer (to the mainland) and the bridge hasn’t been constructed yet, so we’re dealing with it.

Q: Who’s going to be your starting quarterback in Sydney?

A: We don’t know yet. We won’t know anything until about Aug. 10, I would bet.

Q: Is it unusual to have so many quarterbacks to choose from?

A: Well, that is the position that can change a program the fastest, so we gave the three guys we had in spring a lot of rest. But I felt like we needed some more competition. We’ll have seven in camp.

Q: I’m sure on a personal level it must have been tough, but on the athletics level, how are you going to deal with the dismissal of defensive lineman Kennedy Tulimasealii, who ran into some legal troubles? Some people thought that was a blow.

A: You know, I look at it differently. This team with Kennedy was able to manage only three wins last year. There’s not one person in this game who makes a team win or lose. But I feel worse for Kennedy because this was a big opportunity year for him, and it was just sad to see it kind of take a turn …

Q: Kind of sad, you say?

A: Oh, I think it was very sad. But it’s a realization that they’re not boys anymore. They’re men and their decisions have man consequences.

Q: Who’s likely to be a leader in the rushing category this year?

A: There’s a kid name Paul Harris, who was a thousand-yard rusher last year. Then there’s Diocemy Saint Juste, who is a really talented kid. Then you got a change-up back like Steven Lakalaka. That’s a deep crew for us.

Q: I think some people were taken aback by how young one of those guys was whom you recruited lately. Is that a trend in college recruiting now, to recruit 14-year-olds?

A: No. What happens is, the access to evaluations has increased, with the highlight films being available all over, and with the connections you make. And, you know, he’s got three older brothers. I can’t talk about it too much, but I recruited one of them, so then I met the whole family.

Q: In general, how’s it going for the recruiting?

A: I think it’s the recruiting effort that people are appreciating from Hawaii right now. We’ve gotten a lot of compliments for our coaches who have been on the road. People like our presence, our personality in recruiting. I think we’ve made positive noise, which is what we needed to do.

Q: Is attending a lot of social events and doing media interviews part of your job?

A: Oh yeah, that’s a big part of the job. Especially in your first year, I think there’s a lot of promoting of the program that needs to be done. I think people want to hear what’s going to be different, what’s going to be new. And we try to make a lot of noise on social media, too.

Q: What were your thoughts when you were let go by Coach Chow? Were you disappointed, or was that like a door of opportunity opening for you in some ways?

A: Well, it’s hard the first time you get fired or let go, or however you want to word it. You don’t quite understand it; you tried your best. It wasn’t Norm’s fault. Norm had a vision that he wanted to run with and I didn’t fit in. I had to dig in my heels and go get another job and show that I could be successful. There’s guys that get out of the profession after they get fired because they don’t like that. … I’m very appreciative of finally getting the break to come home, but there’s an aspect to it that you’ve gotta have grit and you gotta be hard because this profession is not for everybody.

Q: Is there any one head coach in your long football career whom you enjoyed playing for the most, or maybe learned from the most?

A: Umm … Probably June Jones.

Q: Why?

A: I just think it happened at a time when football could have gone away for me. I guess every stop could have been my last playing. But I think the combination of June Jones and Hawaii kind of really pointed me in the direction I was going to go with my life.

Q: Do you ever consult with him these days?

A: I talk to him. He’s a great mentor still. We’ve got a great love for each other.

Q: One thing everyone seemed to like about June Jones as head coach was that he had all these connections to help place UH grads into the professional leagues, especially the NFL. With your connections in the AFL and the NFL … is that going to help you place people into those leagues, too, when that seems justified?

A: I think so, but I think more so for June it was how he developed players. People knew that his quarterbacks were coached up right. They knew his O linemen knew how to pass-protect. We had some great players throughout June’s tenure as coach here.

Q: Do you see graduates ever wanting to go into the AFL, or do they all want to go into the NFL?

A: No, the NFL is the way to go. You don’t make any money in any other other league, really. … Those are just ways to stay alive, really.

Q: What do you think about the Arena Football League?

A: Love it, loved it. It’s such a different game. It takes a different element for the quarterback as far as timing and touch of your throws. And it’s a smaller team, so the teams that win are the ones that are close, you know, to each other.

Q: Besides yourself, who else from UH has gone into the AFL?

A: Shane Austin was backup quarterback for us at UH; he played behind Bryant Moniz (now a quarterback in the Canadian Football League). Shane was an extremely talented player and he’s still playing in the Arena Football League; he was one of the better quarterbacks in that league last year.

Q: In your own career in Hawaii, what would you say was your highlight as a player?

A: A lot of people talk about the BYU game for our team (in 2001), in part because that was such a culmination of a great season. But mine was the game at SMU, which really kind of jump-started the whole thing for me. I think we were 1-3 for the season, and Timmy (Chang) had gotten hurt, so I took over for the SMU game, and we were down, I think, 17 points at halftime. But something happened in that locker room, with Chris Brown, with La’anui Correa, with just everyone. It was almost just a silent commitment to each other that we’re not letting this happen. It was pretty powerful, almost spiritual. And, you know, at that point, that team really gelled and came together and we went on a run from there.

Q: What about Aloha Stadium — its condition, its parking situation? Is it a good place to play?

A: I think it’s been a great place to play. … But I just try to control what I can control, and right now it’s really to zero in on trying to win as many football games as we can, and try to improve the best way we can.

Q: What about the facilities for your players at UH? Wasn’t that one of June Jones’ complaints, that they were pretty run down?

A: Yeah. But I think when Norm got hired, there were a lot of improvements, and it’s the best it’s ever been. But, you know, we won a lot of games with facilities that weren’t up to par with the rest of our competition, so it’s not that important.

Q: And what about the team’s academic side? How do you make sure that the players are sticking with their studies as well?

A: Well, we have a great academic center, and a great center of counselors, mentors, student aides, advisers, all that, but the assistant coaches are responsible for their position groups and their grades. And credit our guys: They had one of the worst semesters in the fall, academically, in the last five or six years, and we challenged them. We said, “Guys, you gotta be a complete person. And you have to prove people wrong that you guys, you know, not only can be good football players but that you can be good people, and you gotta be good academically, too.” And they responded and it was the greatest improvement in UH history as far back as our records go. It went from a 2.56 in the fall to, I believe, a 2.82 in the spring, as a team. That was our team GPA.

Q: All right. So this is your first year as head coach, and I reckon after your four years are up you’d still like to be wanted.

A: Yeah, that’d be good.