UH can’t afford to wait till June to get a new AD

An announcement of an athletic director search process by January?

A new AD selected by mid-2015?

Please tell me here we DON’T go again.

The first thing that should be evident about the University of Hawaii’s athletic model is that it is badly broken.

The second thing is that the same tired old ways of going about fixing it aren’t working and that time — and patience — are running out to get it right.

Forming another 12-member search or advisory committee, hiring another mainland search firm and taking six months to do it all is a road we’ve been down before and it is a money-sucking dead end.

If we want to bring about real change, then somebody up at UH — the president, Manoa chancellor, Board of Regents, or all of the above working in rare concert — is going to have to make a real stand-up executive decision. Sooner rather than later.

Athletics needs a fundraiser as well as an administrator and it needs someone familiar with the local landscape who can walk the halls of power without having to be handed a map.

A search firm in Georgia isn’t going to deliver that. And anybody it offers up, even a person who is a quick study, is going to take at least a year to figure things out, if they ever do.

Ben Jay gave it his best, heartfelt effort, but the leap from Columbus, Ohio, to Bishop Street, was considerable.

There are currently two people in Hawaii who have the requisite abilities, grounding in the community, business acumen and innovative nature to do this job and they are right in front of UH’s eyes: Rick Blangiardi and Keith Amemiya.

Blangiardi is a former UH football player and coach and, more important, longtime member of the business community. The man worked his way up in the TV industry from salesman to network executive. With the late Stan Sheriff, he put together a TV model that worked for two decades.

And he has a deep passion for UH.

Of course, he would have to in order to even consider walking away from his far more lucrative position at Hawaii News Now for the considerable fixer-upper that is UH.

Amemiya is a lawyer by training, but proved to be far more in a decade running the Hawaii High School Athletic Association.

He brought long combative OIA vs. ILH factions together, implemented classification and promoted national-quality games matching local teams and mainland powers that made money.

And he raised money, millions in fact, with the hugely successful Save Our Sports campaign that did save high school sports in the tightest of economic times. He led the partnership with the NFL that gave Roosevelt High’s football facility a major upgrade.

He served as executive secretary of the UH Board of Regents, so he knows the state system, such as it is, without being conscripted by it.

Like Blangiardi he has a well-paying executive position (insurance industry) that would require dedication to the UH cause to walk away from.

Either one of those two would be a good choice. The best choice would be both, working in tandem in a way that could insure stability and continuity for years.

The next AD needs to hire a men’s basketball coach by mid-March, not mid-summer. Any coach worth his playbook is going to want to know who his boss is going to be over the next five years.

What is UH going to tell him: We’ll pick one in a few months?

That’s the mistake UH made in early 2008 when Herman Frazier was fired. The school had a new Manoa chancellor, an outgoing president and hired Greg McMackin at $1 million plus.

Right now UH has no AD and an interim Manoa chancellor.

Jay’s successor needs to start fundraising in January, not June. UH requires somebody who can work with the UH and state administration to forge a strategic plan on the double, not next fall.

So, what is UH waiting for?

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.