At his introductory press conference two weeks ago, incoming athletic director David Matlin promised his office door would always be open to athletes at the University of Hawaii.

Of course, at the moment, he doesn’t have a door — much less an office — at UH.

"I’m very glad to have a bench outside," Matlin jokes.

He does an interview in the first floor hallway and flits from office to office in the athletic department trying to manage a stack of papers. Friday, he met with a leading corporate sponsor in the Nagatani Academic Center.

Until he officially takes office — and an actual office — as AD on April 27, after winding up things as a contractor for ESPN Events, Matlin is officially considered a "volunteer" consultant at UH. Next week, when his agreement is confirmed by the Board of Regents, he will become the AD designate.

In the interim he can sign no binding documents, except for the liability waiver the school required to allow him a presence on campus.

It is a curious netherworld Matlin operates in, one in which Eran Ganot, the new men’s basketball coach, was his heart-and-soul pick but, officially, belonged to Manoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman, who made the introduction at Wednesday’s press conference.

Outgoing AD Ben Jay is scheduled to move out of the office by April 27 and thereafter be on assignment to the Manoa chancellor’s office until he departs at the end of May.

Before Matlin sits in the AD’s chair, he has already hired one coach and was working to avoid making it two. Some ADs at UH didn’t make that many marquee hires in tenures of five years. Which was undoubtedly part of the reason Matlin sought to get Rainbow Wahine coach Laura Beeman to stay and, then, joyously hugged her Thursday after learning she had withdrawn her name from consideration for the Utah job.

"I don’t need another (coaching) search right now," Matlin sighed.

But if his brief tenure has been remarkable for what has already been accomplished, it is also noteworthy for how fast he has been able to get it done. At UH, where the hiring process can sometimes approximate molasses being made to run uphill, the hiring of Ganot was commendable for its speed.

From the day Matlin was allowed to begin interviews to the time Ganot was approved and on a plane here Wednesday night required six days. Many schools have done it faster, of course, but for UH, where there are committees and such to be negotiated, this qualified as warp speed.

It was not all Matlin’s doing, but at the very least he reinforced to his bosses the urgency of getting it done and then ran, not walked, the opportunity to a fruitful conclusion.

For somebody who had never hired a coach or previously waded deep into the UH bureaucracy, it stands as a promising start. One that, hopefully, sets a baseline to work from in the next hiring.

In the meantime, if you need to find Matlin at UH anytime soon, he says, "look for me on the bench outside."

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