By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer
Even as football coach June Jones recovers in his hospital bed from last week’s car crash, he has still managed to help shape the ongoing search for the University of Hawai‘i’s next baseball coach.
While Jones was not officially involved in the hunt for the Rainbows’ baseball job, he has nevertheless touched it more than if he had a front row seat on the screening committee. He has the potential to have more of an impact on UH baseball now than he did as a gangly first baseman in 1973.
When Jones agreed to take over the downtrodden 0-12 football team in 1998, he changed the way both UH and the public came to look at hiring coaches in the so-called revenue sports.
When UH went 9-4 and won the O‘ahu Bowl in Jones’ first season, it gave new perspective to the way that coaching vacancies would be viewed.
Until then, when UH had a vacancy it wasn’t so much who the school might want but how cheaply it could get by on largely institutional funds.
But in going outside its narrow comfort zone and pursuing Jones, UH came to realize the truth of present day intercollegiate athletics: You are likely to get what you pay for. That in being penny-wise when it hired Jones’ predecessor for $105,000 a year, it was, in the long run, also pound foolish almost to the point of bankrupting the entire athletic program.
Before 1998, the mere suggestion of a $300,000 head football coach’s package would have prompted an apoplectic outbreak in Manoa. Making a run at Jones for what would turn out to be a bargain rate — $320,000 for a sitting NFL head coach — took a major change in philosophy and in how to underwrite the investment.
But it wasn’t just the money. It was also raising the aim and the way athletic director Hugh Yoshida went about rewiring the hiring process. It was bringing in outside resources and expertise to avoid some of the pitfalls of the past.
In the aftermath, Jones’ sudden success posed an important question: If UH could hit the jackpot in football, shouldn’t it at least aim higher in other revenue sports, too?
The test case is now baseball, which Yoshida has correctly targeted as a strategic sport for Manoa. It is one of the few offerings among UH’s 17 sports that can draw heavily on local talent while having the potential to be both self sufficient and a Top 25 performer.
The lessons learned are being applied in the search for the coach who will be expected to add to what Les Murakami has begun. And the quality of the finalists is testament to that.
Which is appropriate since Jones’ hiring in 1998 raised the bar on what UH is looking for and what its fans are coming to expect.
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