Frazier addresses Athens 2004. The Games finally returning to their birthplace.
pressing issues
The UH AD covers everything
from June Jones' contract to Title IXBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.com
For anyone who believes in the Olympic ideals, this will be the ultimate athletic experience. For Herman Frazier, the trip to Greece in some 19 months is all that and more.
The Hawaii athletic director already knew he was going to the XXVIII Olympiad as a U.S. Olympic Committee vice president. Sunday in Chicago, the USOC selected the 1976 gold medalist as the Chef de Mission where his biggest job is overseeing the security of the 800-plus American team in what is expected to be the most-watched Games ever.
"I can't begin to tell you how big the task will be," Frazier said yesterday. "It will be a lot of planning, a lot of discussions to make sure things are correct. There is always lot of security to deal with when we travel for foreign competition and add to that all the other things that are currently going on in the world.
"Personally, being able to go back and represent the U.S. in the birthplace of the modern Olympics is very special. I basically will be in charge of our Olympic team. It's a big task, but it's a position you can't turn down."
Until then, Frazier will be competing in his own mini-Olympics. His version of the pentathlon includes: finalizing the football schedule; contract negotiations with football coach June Jones; minimizing a projected budget deficit; a master plan for Lower Campus facilities; dealing with the latest ruling on Title IX; and adding men's cross country in order to comply with the Western Athletic Conference.
>> Football schedule: Akron is still on Hawaii's schedule, but whether it will be as the season-opening opponent remains to be seen. Frazier has had ongoing discussions with Zips officials who wanted to move the game from the scheduled Aug. 30 in order to play Kent State in a TV game on Aug. 28.
Hawaii has an open date on Sept. 6, but that is the day Akron is scheduled to play Wisconsin. Frazier said he told Akron officials he would try to keep them on this year's schedule -- there is a potential $250,000 penalty for pulling out -- and noted that Hawaii has an open date at the end of the season on Dec. 6.
"We had very serious discussions with Indiana that broke off last week," Frazier said. "We are looking at Division I-A teams and I'm keeping my options open. If it can't fit in the front end of the schedule, it can fit in the back end where we have some flexibility. We want to get this done as soon as possible so we can get out our season-ticket requests."
Frazier said he has calls into several schools from major BCS conferences, including the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12. He also had calls into coaches he considers friends: Oregon State coach Dennis Erickson and OSU assistant Danny Cozzetto, a former assistant at Arizona State, Frazier's alma mater.
However, Erickson yesterday took the head job with the San Francisco 49ers. Frazier didn't expect to schedule the NFL team any time soon.
>> Jones' contract: The negotiations are continuing, said Frazier, to get the head football coach signed soon. Jones is in the final season of a five-year contract that pays him an estimated $400,000.
"We didn't start negotiations until after the season was over," said Frazier. "We've had some positive conversations and as soon as we get it done, we'll announce it."
Several reports have put Jones' request at $1 million a year, although the coach has disputed the amount. His name surfaced in a San Francisco Chronicle story yesterday and even had a quote from his agent, Leigh Steinberg. But the accuracy of that story is in question, seeing how Erickson was named the 49ers head coach yesterday.
>> Budget deficit: "We don't have our hands on a real number," Frazier said. "I know there's speculation that it's $1 million. The one number we do know is that when I came on board, the budget I saw said $18 million.
"But how are you going to have a budget that's $18 million when the year before it was $16 million? What we're trying to look at is where the fat is and pare it down."
Frazier said he was looking beyond the deficit. The department will be trying to bring in additional revenue by luring more fans to the remaining games for men's and women's basketball and men's volleyball and baseball through different marketing techniques.
Peter Englert, UH-Manoa chancellor, said the university will cover the anticipated athletic department deficit. He is unsure where the money will come from, as the entire university struggles with the mandated $4 million budget cuts by Gov. Linda Lingle.
>> Lower Campus facilities: There is no master plan, said Frazier. He hopes newly hired associate athletic director Tom Sadler will help in that department.
"Tom has two roles," Frazier said. "He will take a look at the ticket operations, and he will get a handle on everything that is going on, facility-wise, on Lower Campus. The athletic department is responsible for all the maintenance down here, and that includes the ROTC buildings. We also oversee intramurals, P.E. and KLS (Kinesiology and Leisure Sciences) programs.
"That's a big financial hit on our budget. There's been no master plan, no budget, so you end up reacting to things more."
UH is running its 19-sport program on what officials call an "unbalanced" budget of approximately $17 million.
He said the addition of Sadler continues his re-organization of his administration. Marilyn Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano remains as senior woman administrator.
Frazier said there will soon be a new chart out with a better distribution of who the coaches will report to.
>> Title IX: The 30-year-old law that led to gender equity in college athletics has come under fire and under review nationally. Currently, scholarship percentages for men and women are based on percentages of male and female enrollment.
"I think it should be tied into what's popular on your campus and to what the students want," Frazier said. "A pure numbers situation puts you in a position whereby you're reacting to something all the time.
"When I look at the successes of the female side of our programs, there has been adjustments made. Now we need to fine-tune it. We should be in the position where athletics departments can run quality women's programs without creating other kinds of issues for themselves."
>> Men's cross country: In order to stay in compliance with WAC membership rules, Hawaii will need to add a WAC-sponsored sport within the next few years.
The obvious choice is cross county, a relatively cheap sport that can piggy-back with women's cross country.
"We won't take a real serious look at that until April or May," Frazier said.
University of Hawaii