A sports official who has had eyes on the University of Hawaii athletic director’s job in recent years was asked about his interest in the position this week.

"I don’t think they could draft me (to take it) now," he said.

Translation: Mounting questions about who is really calling the shots around UH could make the AD job a tougher sell for quality candidates.

Not exactly your ideal situation as UH steps into the Mountain West and Big West conferences during a volatile period in college athletics.

Keep in mind that under-funded UH has always been considered something of a fixer-upper. Because of geography, population, finances and island politics, former Western Athletic Conference commissioner Joe Kearney famously called it "the most difficult AD job in the country."

And that was in better times when there was a more clearly defined organizational chart in Manoa.

These days, in the wake of the Stevie Wonder fiasco and its head-shaking fallout, you hear comparisons to UH operating "like a third-world country" and prospective candidates describing the AD job as "toxic" or "a potential suicide mission."

Meanwhile, UH coaches can’t be feeling too comfortable, wondering who will really be running the place.

Ostensibly, the Manoa chancellor has direct and primary supervision of athletics. At least that was how it was supposed to be in the NCAA’s book. But on a given day there are any number of other hands involved. Some up to their elbows.

At various times in the past two years some members of the UH Board of Regents, the president, president’s office and politicians have stepped beyond merely oversight. In the case of securing MWC membership, it had its benefits.

But more often, such as when it came to negotiating contracts or losing them in the black hole of campus bureaucracy for months, it has been to the detriment.

How would you like to be the AD who sits down to negotiate a basketball coach’s contract extension and is sabotaged by people above? You offer the coach a $35,000 raise out of an already tight budget but people above you float a figure considerably higher.

But the Jim Donovan case sums up a lot of what’s wrong. Whatever their reasons, people at the presidential and regents level, despite recommendations by out-going Manoa chancellor Virginia Hinshaw, chose not to renew his contract.

That is their perogative, of course. But instead of announcing the decision up front as Donovan headed into his final year four months ago and moving on, the perception is they waited for something that might make the move more publicly palatable. Then came the Wonder blunder. Except that after singling Donovan out and tossing him under the bus with a solo press conference and indefinite leave, the bus didn’t run him over. The ballyhooed investigation found or will find, depending on the latest UH version, no wrongdoing on his part.

He had oversight, of course. But what of those in finance who approved and made the $200,000 wire transfer? Or the general counsel’s office, which was charged with reviewing the contract?

Meanwhile the new guy on campus, Manoa chancellor Tom Apple, his strings being pulled from above, issues statements on Donovan’s reassignment so contradictory as to be farcical. All the while the window shades are tightly drawn at a silent Bachman Hall.

There are only 124 "major" college AD jobs, so rest assured UH will get applicants. The quality remains to be seen.

At this point, maybe UH should require mental competency exams for those who apply.

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