Like some of her predecessors, University of Hawai'i-Manoa Chancellor Virginia S. Hinshaw has become a regular at the school's sporting events.

Hinshaw — and her now-trademark cowgirl hat — were visible during the football season, at the Sugar Bowl and now in the arena sports.

But unlike some of the chancellors who preceded her in the office at Hawai'i Hall, she doesn't intend to be sideline window dressing.

The announcement yesterday that she will chair the search committee for the next athletic director says that after seven months on the job she plans to be not only an active participant in shaping athletics policy but a forceful one, too.

You suspected as much the way she waded into the football scene just a few months on the job. And the way she tried to be front and center at the press conference following head coach June Jones' departure underlined it. Indeed, the perception was that she wished UH President David McClain would leave everything — the Sugar Bowl and all that ensued — to her.

Now, she has most of it from a say in the firing of Herman Frazier and the hiring of football coach Greg McMackin to voting in the WAC, although McClain has a final say before anything lands on the UH Board of Regents' agenda. She holds UH's seat on the nine-member WAC Board of Directors, the group that decides conference policy.

Yesterday's announcement says she plans to take the ball and run with it on the AD selection. The committee's makeup — and just as important who was left off — suggests she will call the plays, too, since she should control at least three of the nine votes and ultimately makes the recommendation.

The early read is that interim athletic director Carl Clapp, already the biggest winner in the athletic department this year, has the most reason to be encouraged. With just under two years at UH and little known outside of Manoa until Frazier was dismissed, Clapp appears to have won Hinshaw's confidence with his handling of things at the Sugar Bowl and thus the interim appointment and a doubling of his salary to $227,807.

Rockne Freitas, an 11-year NFL veteran who was associate athletic director at UH in the 1980s and now serves as Hawai'i Community College Chancellor, would seem to have some following on the committee, though not as much as he could have had under membership that had been rumored.

Ultimately, the one with the most on the line in the AD sweepstakes is Hinshaw. The next AD will be her call and she clearly wants it that way.

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