The University of Hawaii threatened then-football coach Greg McMackin with an "investigation" in an attempt to force him to accept a lower contract buyout figure, former athletic director Jim Donovan told a state Senate panel Monday.

During a 1-hour, 23-minute session in front of the eight-member Senate Special Committee on Accountability, Donovan said he was ordered to terminate McMackin in December and to get the coach to agree to a $600,000 buyout on a contract that owed him $1.1 million in its last year. Donovan’s difficulty in getting McMackin to accept, he said, became a bone of contention with the administration.

The details from what the UH had characterized as McMackin’s "retirement" and how it played into Donovan losing his own job as athletic director were among the flood of insider information to emerge from Monday’s marathon hearing.

Under questioning by committee chairwoman Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, UH President M.R.C. Greenwood acknowledged that Donovan had received "glowing" evaluations from his immediate supervisor, Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw, and had been praised in a 2009 report by an outside consultant. Hinshaw had recommended a five-year extension and, after meeting resistance from the UH Board of Regents, she later changed that to three-year extension. The board turned down both.

But Greenwood said central to the decision not to renew Donovan’s athletic director’s contract was the "WAC and Mac" — a reference to Donovan’s handling of the breakup of the Western Athletic Conference and McMackin’s departure.

Greenwood said she felt Donovan didn’t move fast enough to help UH secure a new conference home when the WAC began to unravel in the summer of 2010 and she and the regents feared Hawaii would be left in a poor position.

She also said she was concerned that Donovan was having trouble negotiating the desired buyout of McMackin’s contract in 2011. Eventually the $600,000 buyout deal that UH wanted was reached.

The school announced McMackin’s December departure as a "retirement." In a news release at the time, Hinshaw said, "I respect his decision to retire from this position at this time and understand that he continues to think about the best direction for his team now, as he always has." The embattled McMackin’s team went 6-7 in 2011.

Donovan said, "I was told by the chairman of the Board of Regents, who, at that time was Eric Martinson, that I was to talk to coach McMackin about taking a $600,000 buyout in lieu of a $1.1 million buyout. I shared with him that I had talked with Coach McMackin about it for two or three weeks and that I had gotten him down to like $800,000 and I just didn’t know if I could push it down to $600,000."

But Donovan said, "I was told that I could share with him that there was authority for me to agree to a deal at $600,000 and nothing more and that if he didn’t agree to $600,000 he would be put on leave with pay pending an investigation.

"So, I met with him after the banquet and Virgina Hinshaw was there with me. After about two hours he finally agreed to the $600,000 buyout, a reduction of $500,000. And I called the chairman of the board the next morning and told him we were successful."

Donovan told the committee, "I don’t know what investigation would have occurred. There was an on-going investigation that was one of the two that Dennis Chong Kee (of the Cades Schutte law form) was working on. From the day I was aware of those allegations I believed them to be wholly false. And, at the end of that investigation, the allegations were not proven. I don’t know if they were referring to another investigation or referring to that investigation, I don’t know."

Donovan did not give the details on what was being investigated, nor was he pressed by panel members.

Regarding the conference changes, Donovan said he was working with the Big West and had talked to the Mountain West when he became aware that UH vice president Rockne Freitas, who had been given authority to negotiate on UH’s behalf, had been in contact with the MWC through Nevada-Las Vegas President Neal Smatresk.

Donovan also told the committee that the administration became heavily involved in the committee he put together to help hire a football coach. He said several of the people he had chosen were blocked by Greenwood and the regents and he protested until told to back off.

In addition Donovan said former regent chairman Howard Karr had strongly suggested that he fire three coaches, two of whom he eventually terminated.

Karr, a retired BancWest CFO and First Hawaiian Bank executive, is the chairman of the new search advisory committee to help pick a new athletic director.