Life After June: Reasons to be Optimistic in 2008

By: Joe Udell

Joe is a friend of leaheyradio.com and his column will appear in the January 18 edition of The Hawaii Herald

It has been one week since University of Hawai'i head football coach June Jones, displeased by 11th hour contract negotiations and the program's meager budget and deteriorating facilities, left the islands to become the new head football coach at Southern Methodist University. Seven days have passed since the entire state, upon hearing news of Jones' departure, bolted upright from the peaceful trance of a dream football season. And yet, contrary to initial doomsday reactions, life does go on. UH football lives on. That's not to say that Jan. 7, the day Jones' announced that he was defecting to SMU, wasn't a terrible day for everyone in Warrior Nation. The thousands of fans who were captivated by the team's perfect run to the Sugar Bowl could only shake their heads at the team's sudden fall from grace. Had Jones been offered a contract extension after the 11-and-three 2006 season, or even prior to the team's Sugar Bowl appearance this year, the Warriors would be gearing up to defend their Western Athletic Conference title, not scrambling for a new football coach. 'How could this happen?' the entire state wondered, shocked by the drastic turn of fortunes. 'What will happen to the program?'Fast forward through the protests at Kahala Mall and Bachman Hall, beyond the innumerable, scathing criticisms towards the university, past the heckling of former athletic director Herman Frazier and there is a pulse. UH football fans share many qualities: passion, cynicism and, sometimes, doubt. But their most endearing trait is their resiliency. After all, this is a group of fans that endured 10 straight defeats at the hands of Brigham Young University and 18 consecutive losses from 1997 to 1998. Ask any die-hard UH fan and he will tell you that if he can survive through the Fred vonAppen years, he can survive through anything. And that's precisely what Hawai'i fans are doing right now: Surviving. If the Jones snafu has reaffirmed anything, it is that rainbows still do appear after a rain storm (a slightly ironic thought considering it was Jones himself who abolished the endearing Rainbow moniker). It may have taken a fortnight for the UH faithful to realize it, but it has become apparently clear that the football program is not a team in disarray.This is not 1998, when the school was praying for a football savior in the wake of a winless season, and it is a far cry from the debate on whether or not the program should drop down to the Division II ranks; rather, the Warriors are coming off a Bowl Championship Series game and a full season as a nationally ranked squad. Quarterback Tyler Graunke and receivers Malcolm Lane, Greg Salas, Michael Washington and Aaron Bain are ready to take over the offense. On the other side of the ball, linebackers Blaze Soares, Adam Leonard and Solomon Elimimian will anchor a defense that was ranked second last season in the WAC. Jones, the architect of the Warriors, may be gone, but the team he built is still in a position to be successful.However, in order for the UH program to continue improving, the next head coach must follow the blueprint that Jones developed for winning in Hawai'i: Embrace the local culture, hire assistants with strong Hawai'i connections, recruit heavily in the islands and American Samoa and continue to court players with local ties as well as high character, second-chance athletes on the mainland. Mix in a handful of talented recruits who followed the team during its national television appearances and there is no reason why Hawai'i can't compete for the WAC crown on a consistent basis. For the moment, it seems that the university is following that strategy. The list of candidates for the vacant head coaching position are all qualified suitors with strong ties to Hawai'i: UH defensive coordinator Greg McMackin, former San Diego Chargers head coach Kevin Gilbride, assistant head coach at the University of Texas Duane Akina, offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans Norm Chow and UH linebackers coach Cal Lee. Along with Jones' assistant coaches Rich Miano, Ron Lee, George Lumpkin and Jeff Reinebold, who will likely remain in the islands, the 2008 Warrior squad should have every opportunity to maintain a strong semblance of continuity from the Jones-era. Of course, as Herman Frazier proved this year, having a talented coach amounts to little if the athletic director is not proactive enough to fill out a football schedule and extend coaching contracts. What is encouraging, at least, is that UH looks like it has learned its lesson from Frazier's disastrous reign. Unlike Frazier, who never acclimated himself to Hawai'i during his five-year tenure, all the candidates for the AD position are prominent Hawai'i sports figures who understand the local dynamics: former UH head coach Dick Tomey, Hawai'i High School Athletic Association executive director Keith Amemiya, Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl executive director Jim Donovan, KGMB senior vice president and general manager Rick Blangiardi and Hawai'i Community College Chancellor Rockne Freitas. Any of those candidates could guide UH's athletic programs into the next level and still operate seamlessly within the island culture. Whoever the future AD is, he will have a prime opportunity to restore credibility to the athletic department. Frazier's mishandling of Jones' contract, the 2007 football schedule and the Sugar Bowl ticket distribution alienated so many fans that his successor need only communicate with the media and display both competence and pro-activity - traits which should be no problem for the list of AD candidates - to regain the trust of Warrior Nation. Most importantly, the football program's slim budget and outdated facilities - issues which contributed mightily to Jones' exodus and have been the bain of the program's recruiting efforts - caused such an outrage among the fan base that it would be disastrous for the school administration and the state lawmakers not to address them. In what should be seen as a beacon of hope for Hawai'i, Jones declared in his widely-read farewell email to Frazier that 'the next guy will get everything that I have wanted as it will wake up those that have to make those decisions.' Because public sentiment is almost unanimously in favor of undoing Frazier's missteps, the tasks of the next AD will be markedly easier. The combination of a new football coach and a new athletic director will undoubtedly change several aspects of the football program. Understandably, many UH fans are concerned about the continuation of the program's tradition. Will Villi the Warrior remain in place during contests at Aloha Stadium? Will the program retain the Nike-sponsored uniforms? Will the haka and ha'a continue to be performed before kickoff? Indeed, Jones carved out a unique football culture which is now in jeopardy. While the answers to those questions still remain in limbo, whatever the atmosphere is like in the post Jones-era, the mood of Warrior Nation will be determined on the field. As long as UH continues its winning ways, which, as discussed earlier, is completely realistic, it is safe to say that whatever traditions are carried over and formed in the coming years will be met with approval by the Hawai'i faithful. Anyone who is still skeptical of the future of the Warrior program need not look further than one of Jones' lasting lessons at Manoa: Change can be a good thing. After all, Jones was the one who barred the UH fight song after Hawai'i touchdowns, who introduced the 'Warriors' to the public and who reconstructed the school logo and team uniforms. These changes may not have carried the same uncertainty as the head coaching vacancy does, but they were met with an equal amount of shock and outrage by the UH fan base. Eventually, time and winning paved the way for acceptance as Jones' Warrior culture earned a nation of believers. If history has proven anything, it is that UH football will live on. It may not live on in the same aerial, run-and-shoot form that Jones championed, but it will survive nonetheless. There is talent thriving in Manoa, lessons to be built upon and an entire state ready to offer support. Now that Hawai'i has proven that it can reach college football's brightest stage, there is no reason to believe that history can't repeat itself.