[UH ATHLETICS]
Frazier ready to
join UH family
The new AD offers his thoughts
on where he came from and
where he wants to take UHBy Dave Reardon
dreardon@starbulletin.comHerman Ronald Frazier, 47, was introduced as the new Hawaii athletics director Friday. At his introductory news conference, Frazier spoke of his goals for Rainbow-Wahine-Warrior sports and his somewhat controversial 20 months as the Alabama-Birmingham AD. UH President Evan Dobelle and others focused on Frazier's background as an Olympic gold medalist and Pac-10 administrator for more than two decades at Arizona State.Star-Bulletin: If someone had told you a month ago you would be the athletics director at Hawaii as of Aug. 1 what would you have said?But what of Herman Frazier himself? Frazier shared much about his background as well as his expectations at UH in an exclusive hour-long interview with the Star-Bulletin yesterday.
Herman Frazier: (Laughing) I'd probably say you've got to be kidding.
SB: What's your schedule like the next few days?
HF: I'll be going to Maui today to meet with (football coach) June Jones. We'll go over a couple things we began talking about earlier in the week. I'll come back, have breakfast (Sunday) with a couple boosters. Then I'll take the afternoon off and have dinner with some friends from Arizona. On Monday morning I'll do a radio show and then it's back to Alabama on a noon flight.
SB: Have you had any interesting calls or e-mails of congratulation?
HF: There have been a ton of calls. The phone was ringing off the hook yesterday. One of them was from Dick Tomey, a lot were from friends from the Olympic Committee. There were a few e-mails too. I'm used to e-mails because I get about 50 or 60 a day in Alabama.
SB: What are your initial impressions of the people of Hawaii?
HF: Very warm, very friendly.
SB: We were betting in the office on whether you'd wear a coat and tie or aloha shirt to your news conference.
HF: I was thinking tie, but I'm glad I didn't. I think I would have looked uncomfortable and strangely out of place. (Fiancé) Caroline (Beal) said we should get some Hawaiian shirts, so we picked some up and I wore one of them. The funny thing is that I ended up having to find a tuxedo, too, because President (Evan) Dobelle was honored at a formal affair that same evening.
SB: How has the role and profile of an athletics director changed in recent years?
HF: If you go back 10 or 15 years, the athletic director was always a former baseball, basketball or football coach. Mainly because they knew a lot of people, had been around and had a lot of success. But the job has evolved into something else that has more business, so there's a new breed, many with a business background. You have people who have gone to school to become athletic directors. ADs come from many different paths now. You still have former coaches, but there are also those who come from fund-raising, operations and marketing backgrounds. Look at Jeremy Foley at Florida. He came up through the ticket office.
SB: You mentioned that the budget needs to be increased as soon as possible by $3-4 million. How about staffing?
HF: I think we're shorthanded in the administrative aspect. I told (current athletics director) Hugh (Yoshida) that he and (assistants) Jim (Donovan) and Marilyn (Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano), that they should be saluted for what they've accomplished with what they have. It's basically three people. You look at the front office staff of other schools, their staff should have probably been larger.
SB: What's your background with television at Arizona State and UAB?
HF: There were two different packages at ASU, Fox and local TV, and ABC picked up some games. We got picked early on for some football games, but sometimes it was based on a six-day window. For the most part we'd average five or six games a year. At UAB it was a totally different situation because it was a brand new (football) program. To be honest, UAB and Florida State was on TV and the year before I don't believe there were any appearances. But at UAB men's and women's basketball and baseball was televised, it was part of the ESPN package. But there was no local TV because we were right in the middle of the SEC market.
SB: The negotiations for a new contract with KHNL-KFVE have been ongoing for several weeks now. What have you learned so far about that?
HF: I know TV is a big issue here and is being negotiated. I met a lot of the local TV people, including John Fink, yesterday. We've had no serious discussions yet, but (UH vice president) Paul Costello (who was handling negotiations with KFVE) and I have talked about it some.
SB: There's also a marketing contract up in the air.
HF: I heard about it, but no real information yet. Hopefully I will have some of that to study on the plane back to Birmingham. I've met Leigh Steinberg before, in 1996 when we played in the Rose Bowl.
SB: That's when Jake Plummer played for ASU. I understand you are friends.
HF: Jake's a very good friend and was very disappointed when I didn't get the job there. He gave ASU a lot of money and would have given more if I was the athletic director.
SB: What was a bigger disappointment for you, the 1980 Olympic boycott or not getting the AD's job at Arizona State after 23 years in the department?
HF: That's a very good question. It's nip and tuck. I joined the USOC because of the 1980 boycott. I made a pledge to myself that I wouldn't let what happened to us ever happen again to future athletes. That's why I joined the athletes advisory group. An interesting side note is that Paul Costello was part of Jimmy Carter's administration when that happened in 1980.
The ASU situation was disheartening, but anybody who knows me will tell you I went about my work every day, didn't sulk, continued to be a leader. But behind the scenes I actively pursued a new job.
SB: And that new job turned out to be athletics director at UAB. It didn't turn out quite like you thought it would there. You took some heat for what you and your supporters say was a bad situation to begin with, with the large deficit and a huge lawsuit stemming from a sex scandal involving athletes. Why did you decide to talk about those events without prompting at your news conference?
HF: It's tough to have criticism out there when you know what the truth is. Those two items were talked about a lot in Birmingham and it got out here, so I felt the truth should be told. I think I did that without finger pointing. As an employee, I will always be loyal and fight for the company, but some things being said had to be addressed.
SB: What was the toughest personnel decision you've had to make, and how did you go about it?
HF: (Laughs) Come on, you know the answer to that one. Nothing can compare to accepting the resignation of the son of the former athletic director at the institution (UAB basketball coach Murray Bartow, son of Gene Bartow). That really affected my popularity in Birmingham. I took some unfair shots because of that. Because it's a personnel issue, I can't go too much into it. But one thing to remember is that I had to have support from above to do that.
SB: What do you expect most of all from your coaches?
HF: No. 1, I want them to feel comfortable. No. 2, I want winning teams and winning attitudes. And No. 3, but not in that order, I want to see student athletes walk out through our doors with their degrees.
I want to be involved in the recruiting process. I want to meet the recruits, and their parents. I'm used to doing that.
SB: Family, including extended family, is a very important concept in Hawaii. Can you say a few words about what family means to you?
HF: Family to me means everything. Togetherness, cooperation, happiness.
SB: Can you tell us about your immediate family?
HF: There were three siblings. My brother Irvin and sister Tracey and my mom Frances and father Nathaniel. In April of 1999 my father passed away. In August of the same year, we lost my baby sister, Tracey, to complications from lupus. We set up an educational fund for her two kids, James and Jalil.
I was married early on, and am divorced. No children. But my two guys are James and Jalil. When I go to Philadelphia we're inseparable.
I'm married to work.
SB: We know you played baseball and football in addition to running track in high school. What other kinds of things did you do as a kid?
HF: I didn't consider myself intellectual, but I stayed with the books and got good grades all the way through. From 4th grade to 10th grade I played the cello and was on the all-Philadelphia junior high school choir. I studied all kinds of music, theory, everything. I think I surprised the president a little yesterday. When I walked into his office, he has this bongo drum and I started beating on it.
SB: You said you have no hobbies and spend all your time working. But you look like you're still in pretty good shape. How fast can you run a quarter mile right now?
HF: (Laughs). I suspect a minute and change, but I haven't done that, timed myself, purposely, for a long time. After competing at such a high level, I can't even get myself out to do a 5K fun run. I exercise on the Stairmaster, ride the bike, or go for a jog now and then.
SB: Tell us a little bit about "Herman's," your restaurant in Tempe.
HF: I learned a lot of lessons from that. At the end I had to get out of it. It opened in 1983. I was probably 24 years old. It was a great idea, conceived by Terry Wojtulewicz, the ticket manager at ASU. It was in my name because I was pretty hot in Tempe at that time. It really became a pretty good place to be, a place where the media liked to go. Good prime rib. We stayed open serving hot meals late for guys who worked late. The coaches held their conferences there, it was like a sports place. The Wranglers, the Cardinals had a presence. I never got involved in the day-to-day. It did well financially, but I never took a dime out of it, told them to keep it in there. Some people took advantage of that at the end.
SB: Who are the people who influenced your life most?
HF: It starts with Mom and Dad. If they didn't provide the base I wouldn't have been able to do anything.
There's Dr. Leroy Wilcox, president of the USOC, Dr. Evie Dennis, USOC vice president. There was Alex Woodley. He was the coach and manager of the Philadelphia Pioneer Athletic Development Club. They reached out to poor neighborhoods so kids could travel and do sports. I got to all four corners of the world, got an education you can't get in the classroom.
SB: Do you have a religious background?
HF: I grew up in the Baptist church in Philadelphia. My mother would say to my brother and me, that we can stay out as late as we want on Saturday, as long as we were in church on Sunday.
I have to say I haven't frequented church as much since then, especially in Arizona because of all the pro football. In Birmingham I was invited to and attended many church services.
SB: What made you choose political science as a major? Have you done any advanced degree work?
HF: I really wanted to go to law school. But in 1979 I got hired full-time, and I was still running. I had so much going on. I'm three classes away from a master's in public administration. I'll probably eventually finish it. But I'm so busy. I keep getting invited to be on all these committees.
SB: Do you see a lot more scheduling of Pac-10 teams, given your background in the conference?
HF: I have already heard from ASU, and not only ASU. I've still got good rapport with people from throughout the conference. When I sit down with Hugh and June and figure out our scheduling philosophy we'll go from there.
SB: How about Hawaii against Alabama-Birmingham at some point? You might not have to schedule it for football -- it could happen in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas.
HF: That would be interesting. I'm sure there would be some UAB fans who would like to see that.
SB: There will be people who expect you to get Hawaii into the Pac-10, however unrealistic that might be. What do you think about conference affiliation issues?
HF: Those things change so quickly. There's been no conversation yet. But you've got to be prepared for whatever might happen. In the event there's movement we've got to be ready to look at it.
But what it comes down to is one question: What's best for the institution. As you get to know me, you'll hear that a lot. We will always have to do what's best for the institution.
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