Warriors in no hurry to fill Lempa's position
By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
The University of Hawai'i football team is prepared to enter next month's spring practice without a successor to departing defensive coordinator Kevin Lempa.
Last week, Lempa announced he was resigning at UH after three years to accept a position coaching the defensive backs at Boston College.
"I'll take my time before making a decision on a replacement," UH head coach June Jones said in a telephone interview from Oregon, where he is vacationing for the next two weeks. "I want to talk to two or three guys first."
Spring practice begins March 31, but Jones said it is not critical to have a defensive coordinator in place by then.
The Warriors will use this spring practice as an instructional camp for players with limited Division I-A game experience. That means the position coaches will handle most of the instruction. In 2000 and 2001, Lempa worked with the strong-side linebackers. Last season, he deferred most of those duties to a student assistant and associate head coach George Lumpkin, who has the overall responsibility for the linebackers.
The new timetable strengthens the possibility that Cal Lee, athletic director at Saint Louis School and head coach of the Hawaiian Islanders of arenafootball2, will be invited to join the staff. The Islanders' season runs through July, and UH's training camp begins in mid-August. Lee has an escape clause in his contract with the Islanders.
It has been speculated for several years that Lee, who was a finalist for the UH head coaching job in 1996 and 1998, would eventually end up in Manoa.
Lee has said he discussed two other job openings with Jones, in 1999 and 2001. Last year, Jones offered Lee the job of recruiting coordinator, a noncoaching position. Lee said he turned down that offer because he wanted to remain at Saint Louis, and NCAA rules prohibited him from working for a high school while recruiting high school athletes.
Lempa's contract runs through March, and UH would save $8,750 in base pay and hundreds of dollars more in benefits for each month a successor is not hired.
• It wasn't me: Jones denied published reports that he interviewed for the San Francisco 49er job that eventually went to Oregon State's Dennis Erickson.
"That's news to me," Jones said. "I don't know how those things get started."
Jones, who is vacationing in Oregon, said he wants to remain at UH, and is seeking a long-term extension. Jones is in the final year of a five-year contract that he signed in January 1999.
