HONOLULU — There’s still work to be done, David Matlin figures.

The University of Hawaii athletic director addressed the media on Thursday, a day after UH announced that he will retire on June 2 to cap an eight-year tenure leading the Manoa Lower Campus’ 21-team department.

What You Need To Know

  • University of Hawaii Athletic Director David Matlin held a press conference with local media on Thursday to discuss his decision to step down from his position on June 2

  • Matlin said he was grateful for his eight-year tenure and was at peace with his decision to move on, which he made about one year after considerable controversy surrounding his UH football coaching hires

  • He said he hoped he'd be remembered for investing in people and their development

  • UH could announce its process for selecting the next athletic director in the coming weeks

It was a reflective 20-minute conversation in the UH football lecture hall on successes, failures and work still to be done before he passes off the job’s many duties to a to-be-named successor.

Matlin, 58, the longest-tenured person in his position in the 21st century, said there are “14 or 15” items he discussed with UH President David Lassner that he’d like to resolve before he goes. Chief among them is making sure the latest renovations to the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex proceed smoothly once they begin in earnest in March or April.

“I’m still here until June 2. And I don’t believe in ‘lame duck,’ ” Matlin said.

He expressed gratitude to his family and UH athletics staff for their support since the sudden announcement and said he’d received many “heartwarming” text messages from current and former student-athletes in the last 24 hours.

Matlin, who acknowledged contemplating resigning amid a firestorm of criticism about the two most recent UH football coaching hires last January, said he put those thoughts aside once he got back into the day-to-day grind — until August, when he said he considered transitioning out. He said he figured he’d give himself until the new year to decide.

A family trip to see the musical “Hamilton” over the holidays helped clinch the decision to step away from the job that pays about $300,000 a year.

“There’s a part in it with George Washington and he’s talking about a good way to say goodbye,” Matlin said. “It was unprecedented to leave leadership. To be the president and leave — it just didn’t happen. There were kingdoms and monarchies. I was watching, and I said, ‘you know, I just want to end well.’ And I really felt in my heart that it was time.”

He said he had conversations with Lassner about extending a contract that is due to expire in April, but didn’t want to commit if he wasn’t fully invested.

He said he hoped he would be remembered for investing in people and their development. Of Matlin’s record-16 head-coaching hires at UH, 13 were first-time Division I head coaches. Within the first five months of his tenure in 2015, he had to make hiring decisions on football (Nick Rolovich), men’s basketball (Eran Ganot) and handle the lasting fallout of an NCAA investigation into Gib Arnold’s hoops program.

Matlin was first hired at UH in 1993 by then-assistant AD Jim Donovan as a temporary employee to run the UH midnight ohana for Riley Wallace in Klum Gym. Including time working in the UH ticket office, he spent 13 years as a full-timer at Manoa, separated by seven years as executive director of the Hawaii Bowl and Diamond Head Classic for the entity now known as ESPN Events.

 

David Matlin spent a total 13 years working at UH, including five in the UH ticket office. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)

 

Being the athletic director back in those early days was never something he imagined, Matlin said.

He’ll miss the potential that UH’s student-athletes will have for inspiring the community, such as with the Rainbow Warrior volleyball team’s back-to-back national championships, but he tried not to get overly caught up in the highs of wins and the lows of losses.

“It’s good that I’m sad because it’s been an incredible experience,” he said. “It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been incredible.”

He had to make firings, too, such as with an ineffective Norm Chow at mid-season of Matlin’s first year.

He was asked about being tied to the 2020 decision to hire Todd Graham, who exited amid controversy after his second season. Matlin, who has consistently defended the hire, replied that it’s a complex issue, and he did what he felt was the best move with the information he had at the time.

 

 

 

His biggest regret?

“I think I could’ve done a better job communicating rationale to people,” he said. “It’s a dicey thing explaining and justifying yourselves sometimes when it’s about people’s lives. So, I think that’s something I could’ve done.”

Matlin said he was fine with acting as a resource for UH in its search for his successor, but would prefer not to take a direct role.

As for what’s next for him, Matlin said he will keep it open-ended after celebrating his 35th wedding anniversary with his wife, Dana, and taking a cruise with his family in June. He said it may or may not be in athletics and may or may not be in the UH system.

“I’m excited that I have no idea what it is, but I think that just opens up so many doors,” Matlin said.

UH spokesperson Dan Meisenzahl told Spectrum News in a text message that the hiring process will be announced “safe to say in the coming weeks.”

Keith Amemiya, the former executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association and candidate in races for Honolulu mayor and lieutenant governor, has been mentioned in some corners as a potential candidate, as has Mufi Hannemann, the president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association and former Honolulu mayor.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.