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The University of Hawaii Board of Regents applauded athletic director David Matlin on Thursday for his hiring of Todd Graham as the Rainbow Warriors’ football coach.
“You deserve a (tip of the) hat,” Board chairman Benjamin Kudo said enthusiastically, as fellow members nodded.
Then, Kudo asked what Matlin could do to keep Graham, the coach in the new UH logo shirt and fresh-from-the-box sneakers, if he had a good season or two?
“I know, in the (conference), we are probably at the lower quartile for the 12 teams that comprise the Mountain West. For me, I want to keep good coaches,” Kudo said.
In his nearly five years as AD, Matlin has made some consistently good choices among the 10 coaches he has hired to date. But the inevitable flip side, as he was reminded by the turnover, is that the better they are the more likely schools with thicker wallets will come waving the big money.
That was driven home by Washington State snagging football coach Nick Rolovich after just four seasons. Rolovich had just gotten a bump to $600,004 for the 2019 season. Then he took the Rainbow Warriors to a 10-4 record and their first MWC West Division title. Before the ink was dry on an offer to up his salary to $760,000 for 2020 plus a 2021 raise to $800,000, the Cougs anted up $15 million over five years with generous bonus provisions. And sent a private plane to bring Rolovich and his wife to Pullman. Wash.
“We weren’t even close,” Matlin sighed. “That’s not who we are.”
Nor, short of a Power 5 conference membership invitation and the abundant riches that come with it, will UH ever be.
Just seven months earlier but a lot less visibly, national aquatic powerhouse Stanford swept swimming coach Dan Schemmel right off the Duke Kahanamoku Pool deck with a big offer.
Schemmel came to UH at age 29 after being an assistant at Wisconsin. Then, in three seasons in Manoa, he guided the women’s swim team to three Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships and the men to one.
That, 42 school records and seven All-Americans, grabbed the attention of the Cardinal. In addition to what was assuredly a tidy raise, Matlin said the Cardinal threw in a house.
Presumably not faculty housing, either.
Former volleyball coach Dave Shoji, basketball coaches Riley Wallace and Vince Goo and other UH lifers had offers come their way during tenures in Manoa, too. But many had deep local roots or were program builders less inclined to climb the ladder. Not to mention that the money and perks weren’t at the knock-your-socks off level of today.
Matlin acknowledged, “We do need to make it harder for people to leave,” with the qualification of not throwing around ridiculous money the school doesn’t have. But, as long as the departing coaches leave their teams better off than they found them, UH has something to show for it.
While UH doesn’t have an oil well on campus to underwrite huge contracts or an army of well-heeled boosters with bank drafts at the ready, it can have something to sell to upwardly mobile coaches: opportunity.
Prove yourself here and the places where you can really cash in will find you. And, maybe, even send a plane or throw in a house.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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