Contrary to what’s been floating around the Twitterverse and even some mainstream mainland sports media outlets, the University of Hawaii football team isn’t going anywhere in the immediate future … except to Aloha Stadium and six venues on the continent to play football games over the next few months.

That this even has to be explained is ridiculous, but that’s what happens when an athletic director says the wrong thing and it goes viral via social media.

Indeed, Ben Jay stepped in a big pile of it Monday when he said the football program could disappear if finances don’t improve.

The optimists among UH fans can hope "it" is fertilizer from which some good will come … maybe a magic money tree will miraculously appear.

In one sense, Jay might have done his job of shaking things up. But, especially when you tell people things they don’t want to hear, you have to make sure you are clear.

In the short-term reality, this is yet another bizarre episode in recent UH athletics history, most of them stemming from financial woes — real and perceived.

All this started because Jay was trying to make a case that his department needs $3 million more to try to stanch the downward trend that has had UH sports in the red 11 of the past 13 years.

Whether this is an artificial deficit or not is beside the point for this discussion — eventually money has to come from somewhere to balance the books.

The Legislature will be asked, of course. But for now, Sylvia Luke, the House Finance chairwoman, told KHON-TV that "the best thing to do is work within the university system."

That doesn’t look like a good option right now. Athletics just got $14 million of accumulated debt charged off by upper campus last year. Plus, the overall UH system has its own problems, including trying to find $1.3 BILLION for capital improvement projects, mostly deferred maintenance and renovation.

What about the Hawaii Tourism Authority? It allocated $575,000 to UH sports for the 2011-12 academic year. Before or since? Nothing.

There’s no Pro Bowl to host this upcoming season, so the HTA doesn’t have to give the NFL its annual $4 million rights fee. Some of that could really help UH, and the other college sports programs. They all bring in visitor dollars, which is what the HTA is supposed to promote.

I was told Tuesday by its public relations firm that no one at HTA had time to answer a couple of questions. Maybe Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui will have better luck.

"I think we’ve got to continue to look for more partnerships," Tsutsui said. "The visitor industry benefits (from college sports), and that’s something we should really consider. The HTA will tell us they have more requests than they can deal with any year, but they should be part of that discussion."

It’s worth a try and could generate more money than the woman who called "The Bobby Curran Show" and told him she would forego her Vegas vacation and instead donate to the athletic department.

Those who have lost faith in UH might say Megabucks is a better bet.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.