The Interscholastic League of Honolulu hired Blane Gaison as its new executive director, league president Suzy Travis told the Star-Advertiser this morning.

Gaison will continue at his post as athletic director at Kamehameha Schools’ Maui campus until Jan. 4, 2016, when he will begin the ILH job.

Gaison will take over for Don Botelho, who held the position from 2003 until June 2015. Since then, Georges Gilbert — a longtime assistant to Botelho — has served as the interim executive director and will continue to do so until Gaison comes on board.

“He is a humble and strong leader,” Travis said about Gaison. “He loves kids and he’s passionate about athletics. This is an ideal fit.”

During his 26 years in Hawaii high school athletics, Gaison served as football head coach at Kamehameha’s Kapalama campus on Oahu from 1989 to 1996, when he became an athletic director there.

In high school, Gaison played quarterback for Kamehameha before graduating in 1976, and went on to play safety for the University of Hawaii football team from ’76 to ’80 and the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL from ’81 to ’84.

Travis, the principal at Assets School, said there were multiple highly qualified candidates for the position.

Gaison was one of four ILH athletic directors who shared the league’s administrative duties for a few years in the early 2000s.