Until quite recently, Greg McMackin was not the retiring type.

He’s 66, so he is of rocking-chair-appropriate age. But two weeks ago McMackin said his intention was to at least serve out the entire length of his five-year contract as University of Hawaii head football coach. That means he planned to work until at least after the 2012 season.

But his bosses at UH and a growing segment of the Warrior fan base had ideas different than McMackin continuing along at $1.1 million per year — or even a lower rate of pay, which the coach proposed several times in the past year that ended with a 6-7 record for his team.

One attempt at negotiation even came after the Warriors lost 40-20 to UNLV, a game in which Hawaii was favored to win by a couple of touchdowns (which, as you might guess, was not accepted very well).

This all makes his sudden “retirement” Monday very interesting. We knew for sure since Saturday’s loss to BYU he was on his way out, but not that it’d end like this — with McMackin supposedly choosing to leave on the table nearly half of the final year’s salary he would get for not coaching the Warriors.

Athletic director Jim Donovan repeated several times at the news conference that McMackin “decided” to “retire.” On one occasion a “resigned” slipped out.

McMackin showed up and said a few words, including, “I have decided to retire from this position at this time.”

He didn’t stick around for questions, the first of which would have been, “Why?”

“He volunteered to retire,” Donovan said.

Really? Who volunteers to retire from a job in which you will get paid $1.1 million, even if you are told not to show up for work ever again.

The biggest perceived problem in dispatching McMackin was his contract. It was believed that there was little to no wiggle room from paying him the full amount, whether he coaches the full term or not.

But UH made McMackin an offer he couldn’t refuse. Take $600,000, but we’ll spin it like you’re leaving $500,000 — because you love your players so much.

“In their honor, I am foregoing $500,000 in the final year of my contract, which I hope will help strengthen the UH football program,” McMackin said in his prepared statement.

The alternative? Maybe nothing, maybe the $1.1 million — after a court battle, after legal fees. We’re told the university was prepared to play hardball.

So when Donovan said, “It was a personal decision on (McMackin’s) part” to leave UH $500,000 (that, in my opinion, was unrightfully his), the AD technically was telling the truth. There was another choice for McMackin: Gamble for all of it, and risk looking like a greedy guy, or maybe worse.

Instead, he took $600,000 that he won’t have to work for and looks like a hero in some eyes.

When pressed, Donovan conceded this was an agreed-upon, signed settlement.

Yes, it was full-on spin cycle, and I wish I’d worn galoshes to the presser. But the bottom line is a win-win. That $500K is a good start for a salary for the new coach, even if it had to be wrestled away.

By several measures, McMackin did a good job. His teams won more games than they lost and his players displayed continual improvement in the classroom.

He was the victim of heightened expectations — but expectations he embraced. Remember the hiring-time boast of returning to the Sugar Bowl, only this time “kicking their ass?”

Someone who has worked in a profession 44 years can call departure from a job anything he wants, including retirement, whether it was forced or not. He’s earned that and now Greg McMackin gets to ride off into the sunset with heavy saddlebags. And you can look at it either way you want: He leaves with $600,000 he didn’t earn, or he gives up $500,000 for which he could have fought.