The University of Hawaii Manoa has an interim chancellor, a lame-duck athletic director, a winning "acting" basketball coach and a football coach who most anywhere else would have been fired after his third consecutive losing season.

Other than that, everything is fine and dandy. Wait, I forgot about those pesky financials. Oh, yeah, my bad … and the NCAA investigation of the best thing going right now, that basketball team that is 13-5.

The latest folly is a selection advisory committee for the athletic director post, announced Tuesday.

Now, let’s be very clear: Every one of the eight people on this committee is accomplished in his or her field, a leader in our community. There’s no problem with any of them having input in helping to put together a list of candidates for next UH athletic director.

But, as anyone who knows anything about sports understands, a bunch of good players doesn’t necessarily make for a good team. You need chemistry and synergy. You need diversity.

Most of all, if you are trying to find an athletic director, you need experts in athletics — including coaches.

The thing that is troubling is not who is on this committee. It is who is NOT on it, which stakeholders are not represented at all.

First, the most glaring.

Where’s Norm Chow’s name? Maybe his absence from the committee means he’s considering a run at the job, but I don’t think that is likely, or viable.

Whatever you think of Chow — who is coach of a football team that has compiled an 8-29 record and a corresponding decline in attendance since his arrival after the 2011 season — it is irresponsible not to have tabbed him for this committee.

Chow has coached at Brigham Young, North Carolina State, USC, UCLA and Utah (and the NFL). He knows what winning Division I programs look like, from the inside.

His days might be numbered as the UH football coach, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about the long-term viability of the only college football team and Division I athletic program in his home state.

And he certainly has a lot of contacts with people who can help steer UH to AD candidates.

So does Dave Shoji. Maybe the legendary volleyball coach isn’t on the search committee because he could surface as a candidate to become the new AD.

There are worse possibilities, but I don’t think Shoji is quite ready to hang up the coaching clipboard yet.

At any rate, it’s ridiculous that there is no UH head coach — current or past — on the committee.

And what about students, or, more precisely, student-athletes? Marilyn Moniz-Kahoohanohano and Amanda Paterson are former Rainbow Wahine, so at least there’s that. But — especially considering all the hot-button issues directly affecting them these days, like stipends, cost-of-attendance, unionizing — this committee cries out for a current student-athlete, or even two.

I mean, don’t they constitute the most important constituency in this whole deal?

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.