As University of Hawaii-Manoa chancellor, Virginia Hinshaw helped steer the campus to a breakthrough 10-year Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation.

But far more people in the state recognize her as the administrator who wears the trademark UH-green Yosemite Sam hat at the school’s sporting events.

Hinshaw guided the flagship campus in desperate financial times, but more folks know her as the one who hired football coach Greg McMackin at $1.1 million a season and sacked athletic director Herman Frazier in her first year.

If athletics is the university’s “front porch” to the community, as former UH President David McClain often described it, then Hinshaw in four years quickly became the administrator from upper campus most of us picture standing atop those steps.

Which says a lot about what the job became and something about what UH will have to consider in hiring a successor for Hinshaw, who steps down June 30, 2012.

Hinshaw, 67, is the most visible and hands-on of the four chancellors who have held the post since it was separated from the president’s position in 2001, which was both to her credit and eventually contributed to her disenchantment and undoing.

Left to speculation is how her departure might affect McMackin and athletic director Jim Donovan, whom she hired and long supported. Both are up for renewals on contracts that run into early 2013.

A self-described “cheerleader for UH sports in spirit and presence,” she put the weight of her office behind the controversial student athletic fee that has helped the athletic department balance its books after a string of annual deficits. She also saw to the underwriting of buses to carry students to Aloha Stadium and supported sending cheerleaders on road trips because she believed, sports “provide great experiences for our student-athletes, bring our campus and community together and represent Hawaii across the world in a positive way.”

But she was also perceived in the community and at UH as slow to action when the school’s athletic future was up in the air amid last summer’s tumultuous round of conference musical chairs.

Though UH eventually landed on its feet — and in the Mountain West Conference for football in 2012 — when others jumped in to help broker a deal, Hinshaw’s standing was never the same. She chafed at the intercession and never regained the control that had been stripped.

It was symbolic of the shift in power that the November press conference to announce the agreement in principle between UH and the MWC was held below the offices of the president and Board of Regents in Bachman Hall instead of the athletic department, where Hinshaw wanted it.

Moreover, President M.R.C. Greenwood became UH’s representative to the MWC Board of Directors, while Hinshaw was given Big West duties and remained attached to the Western Athletic Conference.

Of her eventual successor, Hinshaw says, “I think any chancellor needs to be knowledgeable regarding the challenges and opportunities related to Division I athletics programs and also appreciate the positive impacts for students and the community, especially here in Hawaii.”

Hinshaw’s four years at UH underlined that.

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