With no Apple and no juice, Jay’s days soured

The chancellor and the athletic director put on a good show of lovey-dovey. Don’t buy it.

Robert Bley-Vroman is a linguist, and that means he’s careful with his words.

One of Ben Jay’s problems has been with the way he says things (and what he says).

They weren’t even on the same page at Jay’s "resignation." Jay said it was effective as he announced it Tuesday. Bley-Vroman reminded him, and told the media, that Jay might stay until the end of next June while the University of Hawaii tries to find its next victim.

Family, personal reasons? Sure, some of that is true.

But only partially … one of those personal reasons is that Jay had to step down or he was eventually going to be let go.

We needed the really high rubber boots for this one. It was reminiscent of when we were told football coach Greg McMackin was "donating" half of his buyout to the football program when we knew he was being forced to take half or risk getting nothing.

Jay didn’t break UH athletics. It was already messed up.

But it was his job to fix it, and he didn’t. Two years isn’t enough time, but it was enough for Jay to lose what juice he might have had to be effective around the dark corners of local power.

It became impossible for him to do important parts of his job, like fundraising. And when he lost his ally, chancellor Tom Apple, he knew his days were numbered.

Yeah, the number is pretty big … something like 180. I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard of someone putting in six months’ notice for leaving a job.

That’s pretty shrewd in one sense, because UH knows we, the public, don’t have any stomach for adding anyone to that ridiculously long list of administrators and coaches getting paid not to be at work.

And that’s why football coach Norm Chow is back, too.

Yeah, all that talk about grade-point averages and stuff is nice, but don’t let anyone fool you into believing that’s the real reason.

So why is Jay on his way out and Chow still here? Because Jay has very little powerful local support and Chow still has some — his benefactors that got him in are a little slow on the draw on admitting that 8-29 might be a mistake and ponying up for a buyout.

Yeah, like that would every really happen.

But back to Ben Jay.

Despite his Asian ancestry, he’s a midwestern guy, not a Hawaii guy. Many people from that part of the country fit in very well here. Many do not.

People who have heard him arguing loudly in his office or who have been chastised by him on Twitter will disagree, but Jay has a huge heart … especially for the student-athletes.

When he learned that Judy Mosley-McAfee — the greatest player in Wahine basketball history — died, he sent flowers to her funeral. With his own money. He didn’t know her or her family. But he understood her place in UH history.

Sincerely caring for the student-athletes led to his first mistake (other than taking the job). When the opportunity came to pay to play in a postseason basketball tournament, he didn’t think about the red ink it might add, just the positive experience of a postseason, no matter how contrived, would be for "the kids."

And that is indicative of why Jay was a square peg in a round hole. He came from Ohio State, a place where you don’t have to pinch pennies.

There’s a big difference between deploying resources at a big school and gathering them at a smaller one.

He also tried to put his coaches in positions to succeed instead of firing them. He wanted to give them more support, so they wouldn’t have to look over their shoulders, wondering how long they’d have a job.

Whether that led to good or bad decisions was case by case. For example, publicly saying Gib Arnold should get an extension while his program was being investigated by the NCAA was not a good look — regardless of whether there were private reservations expressed to Apple.

Remember when Jay took the job?

The popular question was, "Why are you doing this?" It looked impossible.

Jay was confident, ambitious.

He looked me straight in the eye at that first press conference and said, "We are a Division I program."

A have. Not a have-not.

But he learned, the hard way.

He learned you can’t always say what you believe to be true … or that you have to be very careful how you say it.

He learned you better check with the unions before you start changing lightbulbs yourself.

He learned you can’t serve your athletes steak and lobster on a hamburger budget.

He learned you can’t mess with the Rainbow nickname, unless you take a football team from 0-12 to 9-4 in one season.

Most of all, Ben Jay learned that Hawaii is not Ohio State.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.