Wherever he is these days, former University of Hawai'i president Evan Dobelle would probably enjoy the potential for irony at today's Board of Regents meeting.

On one hand you have many of the same regents who fired him 13 months ago poised to follow one of his more controversial policies. You have the interim president who replaced him working off some of the same blueprint.

In taking up lucrative new multi-year contracts that could raise the salaries of athletic director Herman Frazier and men's basketball coach Riley Wallace to as much as $250,000 annually, the board would follow a key plank of Dobelle's short-lived administration.

But if the irony escapes anybody in the meeting, it won't be lost on Wallace who, from his vacation home in Las Vegas, noted, "none of this (significant salary raises) happened until Dr. Dobelle came on board," Wallace said. "He saw where we were and took it upon himself to bring us up."

Indeed, it was Dobelle's credo — "Whether it is athletics or sociology, the only way you can tangibly give respect to people is not telling them you respect them; you have to pay them. Otherwise, it is just a lot of rhetoric" — that has helped make UH the leader in Western Athletic Conference athletic department salaries almost across the board.

It was a policy, especially when it came to hiring executives and acquaintances, that brought Dobelle in for considerable campus and community criticism.

Meanwhile, it was small wonder that one of the highest levels of popularity Dobelle enjoyed on campus came in athletics where base salaries of some positions are doubling since his March 2001 appointment. So much so that despite his firing last summer, Dobelle was given a sideline pass and was treated as a popular figure at the Michigan State football game.

All told, athletic department salaries and benefits are shooting up to the point where we're told they will comprise nearly 50 percent of the department's annual expenditures.

While football coach June Jones becoming the state's highest paid employee at $800,016 received the most attention, with this latest round of raises base salaries for athletic director and men's basketball coach also could double.

Dobelle's plan to produce excellence, as articulated upon his arrival, came in two parts. First was hiring quality people and paying them well. The second, watching them produce championships, remains to be seen.

More than a year after Dobelle was shown the door the place where the biggest remaining piece of his game plan endures is in athletics, where it can ironically be given tacit endorsement today.