When freshly arrived football coach June Jones boldly floated the idea of University of Hawaii athletics carving a niche for itself in Asia, it was a good one.

Fourteen years later, it still is.

The problem is that not much has been done to advance it in the interim.

Unless you count Ji Xiang’s two-year, mostly bench-bound basketball career (2008-2010) and a summer hoops tour two years ago, UH has had little to show for all its years of hopeful talk and grand designs.

Now we’ll see if Ben Jay, the fourth Manoa athletic director to enunciate an Asia vision since Jones first brought it up, can do more with it.

Jay, who met with representatives from China earlier this year, is scheduled to go to Harbin this summer for the All-China University American Football Training seminar. This month a team from Nihon University in Tokyo will work out at UH.

The idea is that UH, with benefit of its location, can use sports to help spread its name, attract students, athletes and funding. The potential to do some of those things on behalf of its conference was one of the aspects (along with travel subsidies, of course) that appealed to the Mountain West two years ago. San Diego State’s president, Stephen L. Weber, cited an expectation of “growing relations with Asia.”

Jay, who discussed an Asia initiative with administrators when he was interviewing for the UH job last year, said he heard about the school’s past dreams and plans. He has been informed of its hopeful starts and disappointing stops.

“I know, I know,” Jay said. “And, quite frankly, I don’t care. I’m (starting out) on my own. It is one of the things (Manoa chancellor) Tom Apple and I talked about when I got hired. I want to develop relationships with Asia. Again, I’m not interested in what has happened in the past.”

Or, unfortunately, not happened.

Where UH was one of the first athletic departments to target Asia, it is now finds itself part of a growing stampede. Where Jones once saw Asia ties and TV markets as something UH could use to enhance its standing with the then-Pac-10 when expansion eventually came, the school now scrambles to keep up.

At least half the members of the Pac-12 Conference are actively building their own sports bridges through exhibitions, clinics, exchanges, etc. in an effort well-coordinated by the conference.

Two years ago, the Pac-12 office announced a priority Pacific Rim policy that features China and targets the most popular sports there and the conference’s intention of playing some league contests there.

“In China, I would like the Pac-12 to be seen as the elite athletic conference in the United States with some of the best-known brands,” commissioner Larry Scott said on the Pac-12 website this week.

Building bridges to Asia, more so than some areas, demands a long-term commitment and constant nurturing. It requires patience and persistence.

Especially when you are UH and starting over again.

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