Jones seeks to keep part of new deal secret

By Stephen Tsai and Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writers

University of Hawai'i football coach June Jones has not signed his new five-year contract because he is awaiting assurance that full details of the deal will not be released publicly.

In June, the school's Board of Regents approved athletic director Herman Frazier's recommendation to offer Jones a new contract worth $800,016 annually. Frazier and other UH officials said individuals from the private sector would pay for half of Jones' salary, but they refused to divulge further details.

"There (are) a lot of media people, a lot of other people, trying to get access to that," Jones told audience members at the Honolulu Quarterback Club's luncheon yesterday. "To be quite honest, that's probably more of why I haven't signed it."

Before signing his original five-year contract with UH in January 1999, Jones said, he received a promise from Hugh Yoshida, UH's athletic director at the time, that the school would not make "public what's in the contract." (Since then, his agent, Leigh Steinberg confirmed Jones earns $320,000 in salary and housing allowance.)

Jones said he made a similar confidentiality agreement with Frazier before verbally accepting the contract that was presented to the regents.

"It's really not that big an issue," Jones said, "but it is an issue because I was given word ... I shook hands with Hugh, I shook hands with Herman ... that that's how it would be. When you do that with me, that's it."

He added: "We're at (the) point I'm going to stick to my handshake and my guns, and that's what I want to do."

The Advertiser is among the news organizations and individuals seeking details of the 1999 contract and the recently approved one through the Uniformed Information Practices Act, also known as the Hawai'i Open Records Law.

After receiving such requests in the past, the university made public the contracts of UH president Evan Dobelle, former UH president Kenneth Mortimer and Frazier.

The Advertiser is a corporate sponsor of UH athletics, paying more than $200,000 annually in cash and trade to print the programs and sells newspapers at UH sporting events.

Meanwhile, Jones said the athletic department is prepared to ask private donors to pay for raises for the football program's nine assistant coaches.

"I think we'll get it done," Jones said. "But the school, right now ... we're hurting (financially) and everybody is looking for money, and there's a freeze on raises within the department. (The raises are) not going to come from the school, but hopefully we can get it worked out another way."