Craig Angelos, the senior deputy director of athletics at Long Island University, is University of Hawaii President David Lassner’s choice to be the next UH athletic director, it was announced this morning.

If approved by the UH Board of Regents at its meeting Thursday, Angelos will replace David Matlin. Matlin finishes eight years as the UH athletic director June 2 after announcing in January he would retire.

Lassner has recommended a salary of $325,212, the same amount as Matlin. The appointment also includes a $15,000 relocation/moving allowance, UH said.

Lassner made his nomination from a list of three to five finalists forwarded from an eight-member advisory/selection committee. UH said there were more than 60 applicants, although there was no breakdown of how many applied on their own and how many were encouraged to seek the position.

Angelos has worked at seven universities. He was athletic director at Florida Atlantic and the No. 2 person in interscholastic sports at five other universities: Miami, Indiana, South Florida, Temple and Long Island, according to his bio on the LIU website.

“I am deeply appreciative to the Search Advisory Committee, which screened scores of applications, conducted initial interviews, and recommended a stellar set of finalists to me,” Lassner said in a news release. “Mr. Angelos is the best qualified at this time to lead the athletics department and continue to build upon the department’s foundation to advance Hawaii’s only NCAA Division I program during this extraordinary period of dynamic change and challenge.”

The UH Manoa athletics director is responsible for the leadership of the program’s $40 million to $45 million annual operating budget supporting 21 major sports, about 125 full-time coaches and staff and more than 450 student-athletes, UH officials said. They said Angelos has extensive experience overseeing student-athlete wellness and academic success, hiring head coaches, and supervising men’s and women’s sports programs that have won numerous conference and national championships.

His LIU bio also credits Angelos with “creative and significant accomplishment in generating revenue and bringing transformational change at FAU,” which included a 30,000-seat on-campus football stadium as part of what is called the Innovation Village.

This may have factored into Lassner’s choice, since UH’s home for football since the 2021 season has been a 9,000-seat on-campus stadium (being expanded to 15,000 before next season). The Rainbow Warriors’ previous home for football since 1975 was 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium, which is now shut down and the state plans to rebuild, with availability for the 2028 season, at soonest.

“The (FAU) project totaled $160 million. He chaired the capital campaign for the university and led the charge on how to fund the project,” according to the LIU bio. “He conceived an idea that led to a $12 million gift as part of the public-private partnership and closed a number of seven- and six-figure deals. He led all aspects of the football stadium project from start to finish, including fundraising, premium seat deals, financing, design and naming opportunities. The stadium opened in the fall of 2011.”

Despite this, Angelos was fired from FAU in 2012.

According to an article in the Palm Beach Post at the time:

“FAU’s athletic department reached unparalleled heights under Angelos. He oversaw the school’s move to the Sun Belt Conference, with all programs gaining full membership by 2006. The football program moved from Division I-AA to Division I-A in 2004 and last season the long awaited 30,000-seat on-campus stadium was unveiled.

“The department, though, has been lacking in fundraising and at least one coach, basketball’s Mike Jarvis, has been critical of the department’s marketing strategies.

“The department has mounting debt and the opening of the football stadium has added to those bills. The university took out a $44.5 million loan on the $70 million stadium.”

The basketball team went 11-19 the season before Angelos was fired.

Angelos then began a string of second-in-command athletic department jobs, starting with the University of South Florida from 2012 to 2014. He has been at LIU since October 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Angelos played baseball at BYU and has a law degree.

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