When the University of Hawai'i baseball team won the 1980 Western Athletic Conference title, the players raced to the middle of the field and celebrated.

In the aluminum bleachers of old Rainbow Stadium, fans cheered and high-fived in celebration of UH's first conference title.

All the while, silver-haired Paul Durham, a regular among them, stood and smiled.

For Durham, a man whose charge from Washington Place as athletic director (1968-75) had been to get UH to major college status and conference-ready, there was satisfaction in seeing a symbol of the success of that mission played out in front of him.

Durham, who died Friday in Honolulu at age 93, had been a fixture at UH events for all but the last few years. He said it was because he enjoyed seeing new generations of players and coaches live their dreams. But it was also apparent he took a quiet, grandfatherly pride in the development of the program.

Durham leaves a considerable legacy, enough for two well-accomplished lifetimes really. At Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., his alma mater, where he was the football coach and AD from 1949-68, he built an NAIA power. At UH, where he spent 14 years, half as AD, Durham installed the foundation to go with Gov. John Burns' vision for a modern athletic program.

Durham used to recruit local athletes for Linfield and it gave him an appreciation of UH's potential. Durham's last season as football coach, 1967, opened with a 15-13 victory over UH at Honolulu Stadium. By the time the 1968 season rolled around, he was at UH working to replace Humboldt State with games against Nebraska, growing a $350,000 annual budget and campaigning for WAC membership.

In Durham, UH got a man used to doing a lot with a little. At Linfield, Durham sang in a choir at a funeral home and wrote a newspaper column to make ends meet.

On his watch UH sports began playing all-collegiate schedules, the Fabulous Five went to the NIT and NCAAs. Football had seven consecutive winning seasons and moved into Division I-A. Les Murakami was hired to build baseball.

But early success meant growing community appetite and involvement. As boosters and political factions increasingly jumped into the mix, the by-the-book Durham tired of the growing battles. A Dec. 1974 heart attack, four years before UH got the WAC invitation, prompted a return to teaching.

Even after retirement in 1981, Durham was easy to spot in the stands. He was the man with a proud investment in each UH title.

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