Perhaps the only thing more questionable than offering the richest basketball coaching contract in University of Hawaii history to a second-year head coach is Gib Arnold not taking it.

Welcome to the soap opera As UH Turns, where as of Friday, we’re told, a three-year, $345,000 per season (plus incentives) deal has languished on the table for almost two weeks.

Which is reason to shake your head on several counts.

The first two being: Why is financially pressed UH offering a 44 percent raise after one season and where is the oil well on campus to pay for it?

Make no mistake about it, the 19-12 finish in Arnold’s rookie season is deserving a contract extension and a raise from his current $240,000. Just not six figures. And not right away.

Arnold has brought a commendable enthusiasm and positive direction to UH and the hope is he’ll add to it. But you’d like a little bit more of a track record with his own players before you commit $1 million over three years on potential and hope.

After all, $345,000 is nearly double Dave Shoji’s listed salary ($179,328) and UH’s most accomplished coach in any sport has four national championship banners hanging in the rafters of the Stan Sheriff Center and a drawer full of conference championship rings.

Arnold might one day join Shoji in some halls of fame, but, for the moment, it would behoove UH to see how Arnold’s recruits, the ones who got into school so far, do first. Four of the six initial signees from the most recent recruiting class were unable to gain entrance and two of the ones from his first season’s group quit. Put some additional winning seasons together while filling more seats and UH will be better able to afford the kind of bucks it is offering up now.

Which brings us to the question: Why hasn’t Arnold, who was unemployed 19 months ago when UH took a chance on him, made a record-breaking dash to sign the contract? Why risk UH coming to its senses or committing its cash to football coach Greg McMackin?

The reason, we gather, is one of those behind-the-scenes dramas that seem to haunt UH. Arnold and athletic director Jim Donovan settled on a page and a half “major terms of agreement” for three years and $240,000 when the hiring was made, March 19, 2010. Then the paperwork disappeared into the black hole that is the Manoa upper campus for a year without resolution, a bit of bureaucratic lollygagging that is coming back to cost UH.

Then, apparently an influential hand from Bachman Hall or the Board of Regents took notice in the spring and reached in, favoring a five-year, megabucks deal that overrode anything that had been agreed upon.

But the landscape changed between then and the time details were finally committed to contract in recent weeks. UH had to wait for an in-house investigation surrounding the basketball program to play out and refute the allegations of a disgruntled former player. By then, the godfather had left and the people remaining at the table were more comfortable with a three-year term and a $345,000 salary fractionally underwritten by boosters, leaving a silent stand-off.

If the contract doesn’t get signed, all isn’t lost. Maybe somebody can turn it into a screenplay.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.