Challenging Hilo hoops job drawing plenty of interest

There were some University of Hawaii Hilo men’s basketball games this past season in which the Vulcans played before gatherings of fewer than 350 people.

So when the number of applications for the head-coaching job reached 361, athletic director Dexter Irvin was taken aback.

Happy, of course, but nevertheless surprised, because among the 305 schools currently playing on the NCAA Division II level, the UH Hilo job is No. 1 in at least one respect: It is the most challenging opportunity going.

“Not even close,” said former UH Manoa coach Riley Wallace, a quarter-century veteran of basketball in the state who long ago considered the post.

Which might lead you to wonder just how fine the fine print was on the posting of position No. 81475, as the job was officially listed.

Geography, finances, facilities … where do we start?

Mostly Irvin has a head-coaching opportunity to sell, the challenge of a lifetime to promise and what he terms an improving “infrastructure in place” to pitch.

Hilo is the only state school here competing in the PacWest Conference and lacks for backyard talent.

“There aren’t exactly a plethora of 6-feet, 10-inch guys here who can come in and compete at this level,” as Irvin puts it. 

Which means stretching a shoestring recruiting and scholarship budget for mainland prospecting and doing it under some exacting academic requirements.

Not by coincidence, the Vulcans have managed but two winning seasons and two .500 finishes in the past seven years. At one point, when the now-departing coach Jeff Law first took over, the Vulcans had just one winning campaign in 11 years spread across the tenures of three coaches.

The standard at Hilo was set high by miracle worker Jimmy Yagi in the program’s heyday, the 1970s and early 1980s. Yagi, a Hilo meat packer by day, went 218-87 and took the Vulcans to three NAIA national tournaments in nine seasons.

Law eventually came along, becoming the longest-enduring coach of the Vulcans’ NCAA tenure, and what he did in 15 years was remarkable. He managed a 209-186 record that included three trips to the NCAA tournament and a 25-4 finish in 2004-05.

But junior-college transfers were the foundation of his program, and as entry requirements tightened, so, too, did his margin for error. After two consecutive losing seasons, Law is off to be the head coach at Western New Mexico.

For his replacement, it will have to be a labor of love, because, as college basketball jobs go, this isn’t a launching pad to fame and fortune. The salary scale for the position is listed at $43,740-$74,354, or roughly on a par with the pay of a No. 3 assistant on the staff of Rainbow Warriors head coach Gib Arnold.

Somewhere amid that considerable stack of applications — scheduled to be whittled to 10 or fewer by the end of the week, according to Irvin — you hope Hilo unearths the rare coach its situation requires.

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