On the day he took over the athletic director's office at the University of Hawai'i in 2002, Herman Frazier playfully asked the out-going associate AD, Jim Donovan, "Do you have any spare change to help with the budget?"

As the presumptive replacement for the ousted Frazier this week, Donovan might want to ask the soon-to-be bosses the same question in earnest.

For all the talk about unfilled schedules, lapsed contracts, bowl game ticket policies — are we leaving anything out? — that ended Frazier's choppy 5 1/2-year reign, balancing the checkbook was often the most overlooked setback. And it will be the biggest and most immediate challenge confronting his successor.

The athletic department had an unrestricted net deficit of $4.3 million entering the current fiscal year, according to the outside annual audit, rendering its financial condition "still fragile," the report said.

If you are the 48-year-old Donovan, that's sobering news. But you've also got to be wondering how things ever got so bad. When Donovan and then-athletic director Hugh Yoshida stepped aside to make way for Frazier, there was nearly $100,000 in the so-called "rainy day" fund.

Solvency was the rule rather than the exception and UH was in the top 20 of Division I-A athletic departments in the US News & World Report college sports rankings. The upper campus took money out of the athletic department, not the other way around. It took 9/11 to put a dent in the budget and even then there was still change in reserve.

That was going on six years ago and a lot has changed since Donovan has been away running the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl. And, not for the better, either. As soon as the UH Board of Regents approves Manoa Chancellor Virginia S. Hinshaw's recommendation of Donovan as the athletic director, Donovan is going to have to roll up his sleeves in the most daunting financial challenge any UH athletic director has faced in the Division I-A era.

There is a $26.6 million budget to be balanced and 19 sports to not only fund but nurture toward wider success in an increasingly competitive environment.

The proceeds from the Sugar Bowl should help see UH through the current fiscal year that ends June 30. Well, if the athletic department gets to keep the $2 million or so that is expected to come its way, that is. So far there has been no announcement from Hawai'i or Bachman halls about the disposition of those funds.

That, however, is a once-in-a-blue moon windfall, a temporary band-aid for a deep wound. Going forward is where the task is. To be sure Donovan's resourcefulness and innovation will be tested along with that MBA from Manoa. His ability to bring in the bucks will be challenged as it should be for someone in that position.

But to get out from under a lot of the mess he inherits, Donovan and the athletic department are going to need a sympathetic ear and some help from the chancellor's office, too. They are going to need to work together to get out from under a considerable burden.

To expect the upper campus to help out in the short term and to a limited amount is not unreasonable. To count on it to write huge checks over the long haul is both unrealistic and contrary to the foremost mission of education, especially with the other pressing demands on already-thin campus resources.

Finding a workable medium is the charge and there is no doubting its urgency in a place where asking, "Do you have any spare change to help with the budget?" is no longer a punchline.

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