University of Hawaii athletic director Ben Jay will resign Tuesday, sources told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The resignation is expected to be made at a news conference on campus, along with the decision to retain football coach Norm Chow for a fourth season.
Jay, the former associate athletic director for finance and operations at Ohio State, has been on the job almost two years. His employment agreement with UH runs through June. His base salary is $293,000 per year.
It was not immediately known how long Jay will remain before a replacement or interim AD is hired.
Jay declined comment Monday, and the exact reasons for his leaving are not known. But speculation has been rampant in recent weeks that Jay’s stay at Manoa would end soon. He met privately with Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman last week.
The athletic department is projected to run a deficit of more than $3 million in 2014.
The speculation that Jay was not long for UH escalated when Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple was fired this summer. Apple was Jay’s strongest ally on campus, and had engineered forgiveness of the athletic department’s accumulated $13 million debt.
In a bid to raise funds in August, Jay cautioned that the UH football program could become extinct.
"There is a very real possibility of football going away," Jay said under questioning by members of the Board of Regents Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics.
"But," he cautioned, "even if football goes away, all the revenues that football drives goes away and then it becomes a costlier venture for the university."
Jay also weathered an NCAA investigation of the UH men’s basketball program that began in March and led to the firing of coach Gib Arnold and assistant Brandyn Akana on Oct. 28.
UH expects a letter by the end of the month from the NCAA regarding possible sanctions that could include reduced scholarships and suspension from postseason competition.
Jay was introduced as UH’s 19th athletic director on Dec. 20, 2012. He succeeded Jim Donovan in the wake of the so-called "Wonder Blunder" fiasco. Before Ohio State, Jay spent 13 years with the Pac-10 Conference as associate commissioner for business and finance.
Jay’s first big decision was to drop the "Rainbow" from all UH sports team names to just "Warriors" and "Wahine." But he reversed the decision and reinstated "Rainbow." All UH teams are now known as "Rainbow Warriors" or "Rainbow Wahine."
Chow, the football coach, went 4-9 in 2014, bringing his three-year record at UH to 8-29. He has two years remaining on a contract that pays $550,000 annually.
According to contract terms, he is guaranteed at least $750,000 of the remaining $1.1 million owed on his contract. There is a clause in which he could be bought out of the fifth year for $200,000.
Even off the field, it has been a difficult year for Chow. His mother died this summer and his wife suffered a brain aneurysm in October. Diane Chow has made a strong recovery and is recuperating at the family’s house in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
