Carl Clapp is the new associate athletic director at the University of Hawai'i and yesterday he had to be feeling like this was indeed one swell job.

Here he was a couple weeks in the position, attending his first Aloha Stadium Authority meeting and he got to go back and report what dozens of administrators before him only dared to dream: that the stadium had agreed to waive its rent for not only the upcoming football season but the foreseeable future.

For the better part of UH's 31-year tenancy in Halawa, the rent issue has been something of a mounting sore point with the school the facility was envisioned and constructed to serve. Particularly when the state gave the NFL the place rent-free.

Yesterday's action could save UH as much as $400,000 this year because of the eight-game home season, making it something of a windfall.

But it would be a mistake to consider it house-money or treat it like mad money. For with the savings come a responsibility for the UH athletic department to now make doubly sure it puts its lagging finances in order.

After four consecutive years of athletics deficits, a $1 million loan by the Manoa chancellor's office and what auditors have said is a more than $4 million net deficit, there can be no excuses for balancing the books now.

A lot of people, not only on the current and just-past stadium authority but also at the state capitol, have worked long and hard to make rent relief a reality for UH. In addition, the stadium authority has kept tailgating untouched and taken a wait-and-see stance on a facility-wide alcohol ban, all to UH's benefit.

Season ticket holders have anted up increased premium fees. Television and radio partners have forked over rising rights fees. Now what athletic director Herman Frazier has called the "most important item on our plate" is finally in place.

In sort, everybody has pitched in to help get UH to solvency. "Everybody has made sacrifices," said Kevin Chong Kee, the authority chairman.

Moreover, if UH someday hopes to run the stadium, it needs to make good on this rent break. When bills to give UH control have come up in the legislature, one of the arguments against has invariably been that the athletic department needed to get its own financial books in order. How could UH be entrusted with the additional responsibility, opponents have charged, if it is still running a deficit on its core operation?

On a number of levels, then, it is now up to UH.

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