Rockne Freitas received a masters degree and doctorate from the University of Hawaii but said he wasn’t sure what the title, Vice President for Student Affairs and University and Community Relations and Special Projects for the UH System, meant upon assuming the position in 2010.

“I’m an old (offensive) lineman, that’s too many words for me,” Freitas joked at the time.

It turned out that whatever the title, his days as an All-Pro lineman with 12 seasons in the NFL, well suited him for two of his defining contributions in nearly a quarter-century in the UH system: helping to open the way for Native Hawaiian advancement in higher education and helping clear a path for conference membership for UH athletic teams amid the turmoil of realignment.

Freitas, who served UH in several roles — associate athletic director at Manoa, Chancellor of Hawaii Community College, UH vice president (twice), interim athletic director and Chancellor UH-West Oahu — will be among six UH graduates honored with Distinguished Alumni Awards recognizing “outstanding alumni who have used their education to excel professionally, provide inspirational leadership to others, and provide service for the benefit of UH and the community” tonight at the Sheraton Waikiki.

The others are Army Brig. Gen. (Ret.) James Hirai, Communications Pacific CEO Kitty Lagareta, former Hawaii Community College professor Harold Nishimura, former legislator Sam Slom and the late U. S. Representative Mark Takai.

Freitas and Takai, a former UH swimmer who was a zealous legislative advocate of the athletic program, made contributions that crisscrossed academic and athletic worlds.

Freitas had just come aboard as a vice president when the Western Athletic Conference, a home for UH sports for 32 years, began to crumble beneath the Rainbow Warriors and Rainbow Wahine in 2010. Fresno State and Nevada were out the door to the Mountain West.

With no suitors, UH faced the grim prospects of going it alone as an independent or remaining in a depleted WAC.

The UH President at the time, M.R.C. Greenwood, according to administrators, considered the question of UH’s conference just a “Manoa (campus) issue.”

But Freitas and others succeeded in impressing upon her the urgency of the issue and the statewide interest in the fate of the school’s athletic program. Eventually Greenwood became a vocal advocate, buttonholing fellow MWC presidents at academic conferences.

At that point it was Freitas, citing an association with UNLV President Neal Smatresk, the influential vice chair of the MWC Board of Directors, who offered to press UH’s case.

Smatresk recalled he and Freitas were “old friends” from when Smatresk was Manoa Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (2004-07) and “We had an opportunity to discuss a number of issues involving academics and Native Hawaiian issues. And, I greatly appreciated his insights,” Smatresk said. “Of course, we would talk sports from time to time.”

Freitas and UH athletic director Jim Donovan worked parallel tracks over a six-week period. Freitas with the MWC and Donovan mostly with the Big West.

The eventual payoff was that the ’Bows’ football team was offered football-only membership in the MWC beginning in 2012 and most of UH’s other teams were invited into the Big West for 2012.

UH’s only regret would be that Greenwood was unable to secure the same travel subsidy terms from the MWC that it got from the Big West, where UH was not obligated to pay costs for members that joined the conference after Hawaii came aboard.

Greenwood would say later of Freitas, “All his life he has been blocking for others for the good of the team. He plays any role that we need him to play. For this assignment he was my designated leader to frame and clear a path to make this happen.”

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