It’s hard not to feel bad about how Greg McMackin’s tenure as University of Hawaii football coach ended with his forced retirement after a 6-7 record this year and only one winning season in four years.
McMackin was a good guy who cared for his players, and except for his unfortunate description of Notre Dame’s pre-game dance at the 2008 Hawaii Bowl, he represented the university with class.
But he didn’t have the pedigree to be a $1.1 million head football coach for a Division I program, and UH officials who gave him the fat salary without proven success in a No. 1 job set him up to fail.
McMackin was a 62-year-old lifelong assistant when UH tapped him to lead the Warriors in 2008 after June Jones left for SMU following a 12-0 dream season and a trip to the Sugar Bowl.
There was no reasonable justification for paying $1.1 million to an untested head coach; Jones, who led the NFL’s San Diego Chargers before coming to UH, was paid $800,000 in his final year here.
McMackin made $110,000 as Jones’ defensive coordinator in 2007, and by jumping his salary 10 times, UH officials made him a fast multimillionaire. The $600,000 retirement buyout he received brought his compensation to nearly $5 million for the four years he led the team to a 29-25 record.
By comparison, Nevada’s 26-year veteran coach, Chris Ault, considered the WAC’s best, makes $435,119.
It’s worth reviewing the McMackin deal because of a troubling sense that UH hasn’t learned from the experience and remains loose about throwing around salaries and perks without regard for economic reality.
President M.R.C. Greenwood gave UH faculty a contract that ended in a pay raise in the middle of a crushing recession when other public workers — including UH support staff — were losing up to 10 percent of their pay to cuts and furloughs.
Greenwood, whose salary is $475,000, padded her own nest in the recession by taking a back-door pay raise in the form of a $5,000 monthly housing allowance because she didn’t care to live in the College Hill mansion provided free for her use.
And as UH searches for a replacement for retiring Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw, Greenwood has suggested the salary for the job might be increased from the $337,762 Hinshaw makes to $425,000 or more.
Pushing the chancellor’s salary that high would likely bring pressure to also raise the president’s salary.
The Legislature has rightly shown displeasure about the payroll generosity by cutting general fund allocations for UH, leaving the university to pay for it by jacking up tuition and fees on students hard pressed to make ends meet in a sluggish economy.
Time for a priority check.
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
