Takahara-Dias is class act, but she didn’t win enough

Sometimes it’s just not enough to be a good person.

To use the popular parlance, that’s my main takeaway from Wednesday’s firing of Dana Takahara-Dias. And those 19 turnovers by her University of Hawaii basketball team were takeaways for Louisiana Tech in its 63-54 victory over the Rainbow Wahine, a sloppy loss at the WAC tournament that helped spell the end of the UH coach’s tenure.

The bottom line is the Wahine never improved significantly on the court during her three years, and that’s why Hawaii is in the market for a new coach again. Ten wins in Takahara-Dias’s first season, then 11 and 11 again this season.

She was a great high school coach at Moanalua, but it didn’t translate to the higher level. She had very limited experience with college coaching.

Many will call this a major mistake in hiring by athletic director Jim Donovan. Especially since the process, featuring a dysfunctional advisory committee, was as questionable as Ryan Braun’s urine sample. And simplistic connecting of the dots points toward Takahara-Dias’ candidacy being aided by her former boss, then-Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

Despite all that, I still believe now what I believed then: Takahara-Dias was the right choice. She was what the program needed following the controversy and chaos under the previous coach, Jim Bolla, who was accused of mistreating the players.

Call it a reign of terror being replaced by a reign of error if you want, but it’s not that simple. Especially since the Wahine didn’t win much with Bolla’s tough, old-school style, either.

As an alumna of the program, Takahara-Dias had a better chance to repair player morale and rebuild the team’s foundation than an outsider — a step in the process that could not be skipped.

She succeeded at that. The players themselves deserve the most credit for growing as people and students and persevering through rough times, but the coaching staff impacts them in that regard, too. Takahara-Dias’ insistence on her team’s participation in community service projects should be continued by the next coach.

But it ultimately comes down to wins and losses. This is true even for a program that a lot of UH sports fans say they don’t care about. Here’s why: Even though Wahine basketball does not make a profit, it still expends resources — scholarships, salaries, travel.

Every time someone decides to buy a ticket to a women’s basketball game, it helps all of UH sports. Every dollar that a fan spends at a Wahine game is one less dollar that the program must be subsidized.

And the more a team wins, the more tickets a team will sell. Even though Takahara-Dias and her team built up goodwill in the community, the crowds remained small.

That’s not to say a winning women’s basketball program would sell out the Stan Sheriff Center. It will never be as popular as women’s volleyball, at least not while Dave Shoji continues to put such a great product on the floor.

But every bit helps.

So regardless of whether UH fans claim to "care" or not about a team, continual losing requires a change in its leadership. That’s the way it is in college sports, where money is involved. Sadly, it’s a business, even the so-called "nonrevenue" programs.

To some, Takahara-Dias’s legacy will be the 32-58 overall and 15-31 conference record. Not enough improvement, too many turnovers, so-so recruiting.

I’ll remember other things that don’t show up in box scores. Things like senior night when each player was recognized individually for her final game at the Stan Sheriff Center … and only after that did the acknowledgements and celebration move on to the home team’s seniors.

Dana Takahara-Dias knew how to treat visitors with class. She just didn’t beat them enough.