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Press Box Dave Reardon |
Frazier makes timely
exit from USOCAT first glance, it looks like Herman Frazier's speeding train of a career is slowing down. Or maybe the better analogy is a handoff has been botched, a baton dropped. After all, the Hawaii athletic director did win an Olympic gold medal in the 4x400 meter relay.
But you don't have to look much deeper to see that Frazier's exit from the United States Olympic Committee is actually timely for him, whether he thinks so or not.
The Man Who Would Have Been USOC President won't be, at least not in the near future. After the Athens Games in August, Frazier will no longer be officially affiliated with the scandal-plagued group.
Whether he -- along with the other 124 members of the unwieldy USOC board -- was pushed or jumped is not important.
There's no indication Frazier had anything to do with the dysfunction ranging from back-biting to bribery that turned the USOC into a joke; if he did, he would no longer be Chef de Mission, Olympic-ese for general manager, in Athens. If Frazier was any part of the shenanigans, he would have been quickly kicked out of the kitchen by Mr. Fixit Peter Ueberroth, who was named to head a new 11-person USOC board last week.
Ueberroth's sterling record includes making the 1984 Los Angeles Games profitable and turning around baseball's financial fortunes. He gave Frazier a personal vote of confidence yesterday.
"Peter called me and said he's going to leave me alone, because he knows I'll do it right," Frazier said.
He makes it sound simple, but this is a challenging task for anyone. For one, it's a different game of keeping up with the Joneses for Frazier. He gets along well with UH football coach June, even helping to find the big money last year to keep the run-and-shoot pilot in town and happy. But Marion's a different story; Frazier admits to calling out America's most popular track star for suspicion of using illegal performance enhancers ... hard evidence, though, has yet to be disclosed. This is dangerous ground for all involved.
Isn't that eerily similar to the UH Board of Regents and its firing of President Evan Dobelle? There's got to be more amiss than a few unaccounted-for room service meals here.
Dobelle was a huge fan of Frazier's Olympic pedigree. There's no guarantee the new president would be as accepting of Frazier's frequent flying that doesn't have a direct effect on UH athletics.
The bottom line is it will be a good time for him to take a break from the moonlighting. And the bottom line -- that of the UH athletic department -- is what it's all about.
Since his first day on the job, Aug. 1, 2002, Frazier's Olympic ties have been a source of controversy. Some view them as a plus for the university; others accuse Frazier of spending too much time away from the islands tending to five-ring circus duties.
"The good thing is all the relationships I've made through my Olympics work will still be positives for the university. I can still pick up the phone and call a lot of people," he said.
Once he returns from Greece, the money year of Frazier's contract begins in earnest and he will have to live up to his promise of getting the program into the black.
He can worry about the red, white and blue again later.
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Dave Reardon is a Star-Bulletin sportswriter who covers University of Hawaii football and other topics. His column appears periodically. E-mail him at dreardon@starbulletin.com