Regents should give Jay freedom to do his job

One of the reasons the University of Hawaii athletic department wrestles with an $11.3 million accumulated net deficit today is years of Board of Regents hands-off indifference.

And one of the factors in basketball coach Gib Arnold having a $344,000 base salary and being paid $1,000 per autograph session is the regents’ hands-on interference in the 2011 contract process.

Somewhere in between the two extremes is the proper oversight role for the board.

Finding that balance takes on importance these days as the board sets about trying to redefine its post-Stevie Wonder Blunder role.

A four-member regents Task Group on Intercollegiate Athletics said Thursday it wants to establish a regular committee for oversight of athletics. Moreover, it is recommending the board have more say-so in the salaries that will be paid to high-end football and basketball coaches.

In its report, the Task Group also wisely acknowledges the potential pitfalls of board involvement, saying, "The Task Group understands that an overly zealous board role could encumber and even compromise the search process (for new coaches)."

You hope that sense of caution will prevail well after the ink dries on the eventual policies because, as testimony in state senate hearings on the Wonder Blunder illustrated last year, having too many hands in any process is counterproductive. History has shown us numerous examples of what can happen when UH affairs become a tug o’ war among officials, administrators, boosters and politicians. And there is no reason UH should revert to the days of the unwieldy Board of Athletic Control that went out with leather football helmets.

UH has usually had delineated tiers of authority for athletics — board, president, chancellor and AD — but they have been ignored as often as they have been followed.

Just as the UH board and administration don’t want legislative interference in their day-to-day process, neither should the UH athletic director be checking in with Bachman Hall on everyday business or be forced to wonder who is looking over his shoulder from one day to the next.

In the aftermath of the Wonder debacle, the school spent five months and nearly $60,000 to hire an athletic director and is now paying Ben Jay $293,000 a year to perform that job. He should, within realistic parameters, be allowed to do it to the best of his abilities. Except for concert promotion, of course.

If Jay wants to spend big bucks on a coach, he should touch the appropriate bases. But he shouldn’t be forced to use selection committees. Or, if he wants one, be required to have its members picked by a cabal. Nor should regents be a disruptive third party in negotiations with a coach. All of which happened in the past two years.

Jay should be expected to run a financially disciplined, academically sound and rule-abiding program and have his stewardship reviewed.

The hope is that the people above Jay will give him both the resources and the room to do it.

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