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Sidelines
Kalani Simpson
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Apparently, Frazier was on the hot seat before
ALL of this has had to have felt so familiar to Herman Frazier. Deja vu all over again. The public critique by high-ranking public officials in public (in Hawaii it's the Legislature, at UAB, the trustees). The "mixed" reviews from the media. Criticism. Backlash. All of it. Again.
In Alabama, it was supposedly that he was an outsider and they either didn't get him or were out to get him. Well, here we go again, right? But two things: 1) Frazier enjoyed a long honeymoon here -- years, in fact; 2) Two schools, two states, two completely different media markets, two different everything -- the only common denominator is the guy with Olympic gold. And yes, here we go again.
Frazier has faced some tough circumstances in both places, of course -- here, we know a few of those are at least partly self-inflicted, but tough circumstances nonetheless. But it was Bill Parcells who said, yes, you have injuries, you have bad bounces, you have bad luck. But in the end, Parcells said, You are what your record says you are. That's it. Bottom line.
This is Herman Frazier's record. Twice now.
He means well, and in his mind he's doing his best. But I'm starting to think that this is what happens when he does his best.
And that's what we found out at last week's "informational briefing" at the State Capitol. There was no smoking gun. There's nothing unethical going on here. There is progress being made in some areas, some good ideas. Frazier isn't a bad person. He isn't incompetent. He shouldn't be fired.
But he sure as heck shouldn't be making $250,000 a year. (And whoever tries to tell us how "great" he's doing should have to spend 4 hours getting grilled by Rep. Mark Takai -- oops, UH interim chancellor Denise Konan already has.)
Look. This is not the guy we were promised, by the people who hired him, by the man himself.
That's part of the backlash. That was probably part of his problem with the football scheduling -- he seemed to be operating under the assumption that he was a lot more effective at this kind of thing than he apparently is.
And that was what Takai seemed to be getting at, during last week's interrogation marathon -- where was the Frazier Effect we'd all been told we would see? And yes, some of Takai's questions were inappropriate questions, but somehow, it was appropriate that someone had finally asked them out loud. What had BEING HERMAN FRAZIER actually produced for UH, in terms of fundraising and contacts and talent and influence and clout?
From what I could tell, the answer was that the U.S. Olympic Committee had picked up part of the tab for one of his plane tickets.
YES, SCHEDULING A 13th game at Hawaii is incredibly tough these days, but then, he was on all of those "50-most" lists, he's HERMAN FRAZIER.
Except he isn't. You are what your record says you are. And he's a mid-major athletic director who's now come under fire from high-ranking public officials in two states.
