To folks keeping their eye on the ball when it comes to University of Hawai'i athletics, it came as no surprise that Athletics Director Herman Frazier was shown the door. Before the June Jones debacle, Frazier had made several other missteps, from his mishandling of the football schedule to the foot-dragging on hiring basketball coach Bob Nash to the Sugar Bowl ticket mess.

If Frazier didn't know his organizational skills and priorities left much to be desired, he surely does now.

The buck, of course, stops with UH President David McClain and with Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw, to whom Frazier reports. McClain apologized to the state and to UH football fans and acknowledged that the university failed to step up soon enough. On that score, he's right.

Now on to lessons learned. To be sure, this week's upheaval at UH suggests the need for a refresher course in what, at minimum, an athletic director should be expected to do.

And as UH officials embark on a search to replace Frazier, reviewing his performance since 2002 is instructive.

The resignation of football coach June Jones can be traced at least in large part to Frazier's failure to secure Jones' employment, a primary asset of the local sports establishment.

UH President David McClain underscored that concluding contract talks with coaches and other staff in a timely manner should be Job No. 1 for an AD. And even Frazier himself pledged early on in his tenure not to let contracts run up against their expiration date.

Whatever happened to prevent fulfilling that pledge here, it can't happen again. The next person in the job should be one with demonstrable success in retaining desirable staff, with all the organizational skills that entails. Good people simply should not be allowed to slip away.

Just as importantly, setting the goals and then assembling not only the talent but the finances to make it so is also central to this job. Indeed, fundraising ability has got to be at the top of the list.

In the past few weeks as word of Jones' job-hunting circulated, a group of business leaders was able to quickly raise a nice sum for Jones, who split the money between his assistant coaches and improving athletic department facilitites. Practically overnight, the e-mail campaign raised $100,000 in support, without Frazier's leadership. Imagine what could have been done with more initiative from the head office.

This brings to mind another key objective in the search for a new director. He or she must be skilled at networking with the community that helps finance the program.

As the university's athletics program dusts itself off and strives to move forward, what's critical is to find an athletics director able to forge these ties, and to convert that support into improvements that will better serve all UH athletic programs.