UH’s talk of search firm kicks up memories of ’02

When Manoa chancellor Tom Apple invoked the terms “search committee” and “search firm” in the same breath Monday, a lot of people who follow University of Hawaii sports cringed.

Small wonder, perhaps, since the passage of a decade has done little to soothe the memories of the last time UH employed both in the hiring of an athletic director.

Indeed, the finger pointing from the 2002 selection of Herman Frazier as AD and doubts about that process persist to this day.

A member of the 16-person committee, who asked to remain anonymous citing a confidentiality pledge members took, said “it didn’t turn out anything like I or some other members of the committee I talked to afterward thought.”

With a firm also involved and recommending candidates, “I think we were just there for window dressing,” the member said. “Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have served.”

But David McClain, the committee chairman and then-dean of the College of Business said, “with 16 or 17 people, or however many were involved, you probably have 16 or 17 viewpoints.”

McClain, who later served as UH president, said, “It is pretty common practice for most senior positions at the university to have a search firm and a committee working together. It is pretty routine. Generally speaking, I think search firms can be a useful ingredient in a search.”

At Monday’s press conference, Apple said, “We will probably — not certainly, but probably — employ a search firm.”

Prior to Friday’s Admission Day holiday, a UH spokeswoman said, “Information is not available yet” on whether UH would indeed proceed with a search firm, whether committee members had been picked or when the AD position will be advertised.

“I don’t even know what you need a national search firm for,” said former men’s basketball coach Riley Wallace, who spent 20 years as UH’s head coach. “For example, what is somebody in Texas or elsewhere on the mainland going to know about who is best running an athletic program in Hawaii?”

Wallace’s reference was to Eastman & Beaudine, the Texas-based firm that assisted in the 2002 search.

UH used Chicago-based DHR International on a limited basis in its selection of football coach Norm Chow in December. A UH official said the firm was limited to supplying dossiers and doing background investigations on some of the candidates. UH has not said how much it paid for the service or whether it will use DHR this time.

Glenn Sugiyama of DHR said UH remains a client of the firm but declined additional comment.

In 2002 UH said it paid Eastman & Beaudine approximately $60,000 for services that included recommending candidates. Frazier, who was then AD at Alabama-Birmingham, was one of the candidates said to have been recommended by the firm.

People in intercollegiate athletics on the mainland said the cost of a search can easily run to $100,000 these days. A common formula for determining payment for a search firm, they say, is that the hiring institution pays the search firm a fee equal to 25 percent of the new AD’s first-year salary.

According to a USA Today study, the average salary for athletic directors from schools that are currently in the Mountain West Conference or will be there in 2013 was $277,351 in 2011. Former UH AD Jim Donovan had a contracted salary of $240,000.

In 2002, McClain said, “At the end of the day, we interviewed a few finalists and the president (Evan Dobelle) decided he wanted to go with Herman Frazier and so we did.”

One member said he didn’t vote for Frazier as a finalist and wasn’t sure how Frazier became one.

Legend has long been that former UH coach Dick Tomey, an early favorite, was told the job would be his as soon as the formality of a search played out. But that when the resume of Frazier, a former Olympic track medalist, was put on Dobelle’s desk everything changed.

Dobelle has repeatedly denied the assertion.

Paul Costello, UH vice president and a search committee member at the time, hasn’t confirmed the story, but years later said, “I felt, in the end, Dick was not treated properly in the process.”

McClain said, “It has been a long time. And all I can say is it is a personnel matter. I don’t really have a very clear recollection of the exact process and how it played out.”

When Tomey heard he wasn’t a finalist, he woke up Dobelle with an early morning phone call to express his displeasure. “It was 4 or 5 in the morning,” Dobelle later confirmed. “I listened to him and told him I cared about him but that this was a process that had gone through scrutiny by 17 citizens in Hawaii and that I had not been involved in it,” Dobelle said.

In 2005 Dobelle said, “I think Dick Tomey is a great coach and Herman Frazier is a great AD — and there is a difference.”

In 2008, UH fired Frazier after a series of controversies, including failing to re-sign football coach June Jones.

And some suggested it was perhaps prophetic that the 2002 search process had kicked off on April Fools’ Day.