Hit the road, Jack (Herman)

Now we find out that the University of Hawaii athletics department was losing money the past few years. What a surprise. What? The department doesn’t want another independent audit of their financials? What a surprise.

New Athletic Director Jim Donovan was required to apologize for the lack of transparency regarding the University’s athletic financial condition. In the meantime, he gets to use one of his nine lives early in his tenure as the AD who followed the deposed Herman Frazier.

Frazier had already used his nine lives, so he left. That’s how it works. You only get nine. Evan Dobelle used up his as President of UH. When the UH Board of Regents did a Nine Lives Audit, they found Dobelle at the maximum already, so they canned him and restarted the Nine Lives Clock on new President, David McClain.

Looking back, Herman Frazier probably wasted two or three of his nine lives just with the June Jones contract fiasco. New AD Jim Donovan gets to use the New Guy life, which is usually the first of the Nine Lives to go. It can’t be used again, but he still has eight.

How will they be used? Upgrading UH facilities will cost Donovan at least two or three lives. Those money fights drag on for years. June Jones was so popular in Hawaii that he could have been elected Governor, yet he wasn’t able to get facilities upgraded. What chance does Donovan have?

Once the nine lives are gone, officials are required to hit the road. The really smart officials start looking for a new job when they’re at five or six lives, and make a jump before they hit number eight.