Like the Publisher’s Clearinghouse van, you never know where University of Hawaii football coach Nick Rolovich will show up next to greet Rainbow Warriors season-ticket purchasers.

Somebody’s office on Kauai? A street corner in downtown? A doorstep in Wahiawa? A Costco parking lot? Kaneohe? Salt Lake? Kaimuki?

“It’s the Warrior Clearinghouse, we like to call it,” Rolovich jokes.

It has been an offseason without much time off for Rolovich who has been hand-delivering season ticket renewal customers their tickets. This after he, his assistant coaches and players made an estimated 600 phone callbacks to season ticket holders beseeching them to renew for 2017.

Anything to try and give his program some visibility, share his vision of what Rainbow Warriors football can be and promote ticket sales.

The result, Rolovich said, is “it sounds like we are ahead of last year’s (pace) but not earth-shaking numbers, yet. But it has been encouraging just like seeing the UH hats and shirts around the state. That’s one (gauge) for me.”

According to UH, 2017 renewals are running at 86.2 percent compared with 85.3 percent at about the same time last year. So far 12,463 tickets have been renewed for this season.

“I was willing to do whatever it took,” Rolovich said of incorporating some of his own ideas as well as those of associate athletic director Joel Matsunaga and past regimes.

Rolovich said he came into the job believing, “There were some avenues that I thought we could take (to marketing) and social media. When you get in the chair (of head coach) you are in a position to run with them. Because I had some familiarity with Hawaii. I had some ideas about what I thought people would enjoy and tried to connect it to UH football the best that I could.”

In this he aims to be the budget Jim Harbaugh, of sorts. The Michigan coach has been a promotional whirlwind for the Wolverines on social media and elsewhere,” Rolovich said. “I think he’s done a fantastic job putting Michigan back on the map, getting people to talk about Michigan.

“I think we’ve been visible and I think people appreciated that. Now, it is about strengthening those relationships that we have built.”

But Rolovich knows that victories are what really move the needle on ticket sales. String together some wins — and winning seasons —and chances are long-dormant or on-the-fence fans will re-engage.

UH was poised to make a huge leap last season when the ’Bows beat Nevada and San Jose State in early October. But then came the loss to Nevada-Las Vegas and momentum slowed.

Still, by the end of the season, the numbers climbed from a turnstile average of 16,082 per game in 2015 to 19,298 in 2016, according to audited figures furnished to the NCAA.

There are a lot of things Rolovich would like to do with the program, from raising coaches’ salaries to hiking cost of attendance stipends for players to the really big dream, a football center behind the grass practice fields. But that all takes money, which starts with ticket sales.

“It is kinda getting to be time to start the football season,” Rolovich said. “And, I’m running out of (promotional) ideas.”

The best one, he knows, is to win.

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