UH owes assistants better fate

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

A joke around the University of Hawai'i is that the "search" for a new women's head basketball coach has crept along so slowly it was recently overtaken by molasses. Moving uphill.

Of course, it would be a lot funnier if the careers of three veteran Rainbow Wahine assistants hadn't been left to twist agonizingly in the wind during the interim.

Consider for a moment the plight of the three — Da Houl, Serenda Valdez and Gavin Petersen — all loyal assistants who know that their contracts will expire a week from today, but as of yesterday afternoon had been told very little else since Vince Goo announced his retirement in mid-February.

Will they be considered for positions on the new staff? Should they accept work elsewhere? Will they be on social security before somebody hires a new coach?

The administration is empowered to choose who it wants for the head coaching job, of course, but is there a good reason some loyal, longtime employees must be kept so far in limbo on their futures right up until their termination dates?

Between them they've invested more than 25 years in the program, helping the Rainbow Wahine to win nearly 70 percent of their games and post eight 20-win seasons. Houl and Valdez have more than a decade each on the bench. Houl, friends say, is still paying off loans she took out when she worked as a $5,000-a-year part-time assistant for the first three years. Valdez has been the backbone of an academic program working on a 100 percent graduation rate.

Houl has been in the running for the head coaching job but her last interview — a phone call from the first floor to the third floor of the athletic department — was reportedly almost a month ago. If she doesn't get the head coaching job, Houl joins the others in wondering where to go from here.

For them, a month's — or even two weeks' — notice should be common courtesy and not too much to ask for here. Especially when the process has been so long in unfolding that two contenders long ago dropped out.

To save money, UH probably doesn't want to have Goo's successor on the payroll until after June 30, when the books close on a $1.46 million projected budget deficit. That's fine. But such economy doesn't have to preclude the school from making a decision and announcing a new coach in advance. Or, letting the current assistants know where they stand.

You can bet two rumored finalists, Houl and once-upon-a-time Nevada-Las Vegas coach Jim Bolla, who is currently selling barbecue fixtures, would have gladly taken the position under those circumstances.

Heck, they'd probably welcome the opportunity to get a jump on hiring a staff and taking care of a myriad of other tasks.

After all, just because we're told the Board of Regents might not have given Evan Dobelle the courtesy of telling him the score doesn't mean everybody on campus has to be treated that way.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.