HONOLULU — When Craig Angelos could finally speak after nearly a week of discourse about his fit as athletic director in Hawaii, he took the opportunity to do a few things.
He thanked those who’d seen fit to select him during the University of Hawaii’s months-long search process: President David Lassner, an eight-person search committee and the Board of Regents members who confirmed Lassner’s pick with an 8-2 vote at Honolulu Community College on Thursday afternoon, with one regent abstaining.
He needled media members in the room who'd dug into his past and unearthed facts he’d forgotten, like his batting average at Les Murakami Stadium as a Brigham Young University first baseman in the 1990s.
Perhaps most strikingly, the Long Island University senior deputy AD and former leader of Florida Atlantic University athletics talked as much about what he didn’t know as what he did regarding the situation he was walking into — both from a cultural standpoint and an operational one for a far-flung department with a $45 million budget and no shortage of pressing issues.
“A haole coming in from the outside for me makes it maybe a little more difficult of a transition, but I do know (Hawaii people) are very loving people, very accepting people,” said Angelos, a Utah native whose previous seven athletic administration jobs at universities have all been on the East Coast or in the Midwest. “I know that I don’t know everything. I know I’ve got a lot to learn, (and) listen. I think if I do that and they recognize that I’m humble coming into this process, in wanting to learn and listen and grow, then I think I’ll mesh pretty well.”
UH’s eight-year athletic director David Matlin welcomed his successor with a handshake and “H” hat at the podium. The two have been in frequent contact over the last several days about the transition of power, a grateful Angelos said, including for about an hour in a side room at HCC while the regents deliberated.
Angelos, whose wife, Kristin, accompanied him Thursday, will return to the mainland Friday to reunite with some of his six children, who were watching the press conference remotely. He will return about a week before his official June 5 start date.
He told the media he has four areas of emphasis coming into the job: the student-athlete experience, such as cost of attendance stipends and Name, Image and Likeness deal opportunities, and in academic advising and mental health counseling; a competitive product that pursues national championships such as UH men’s volleyball’s back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022; capital improvement projects both on campus and with the new Aloha Stadium project; and in fundraising.
The last of those, he said, is “what I love to do. I love to get out in the community and meet as many people as I can.” He noted he’d spoken with 15 to 17 local community and business leaders over the last six days. The UH brand, he said, was "iconic."
As for UH’s stadium dilemma — the NASED project has languished for months and UH is not expected to have a permanent home until at least 2028 — Angelos said he would immerse himself in the details and try to offer constructive suggestions on public-private partnership processes. Meanwhile, he said he will learn what he can from Matlin and others about UH’s ongoing build-out of the on-campus Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex.
“It sounds like a good plan. I was curious to see what kind of footprint it had — it is tight around there,” Angelos said of the Ching Complex. "What’s it going to look like when it’s over? I did think about that. … It sounds like it’s going to be there for at least five years or so, which could be an eternity for a football coach. But I’m sure Timmy (football coach Chang) will navigate that very well.”
After a private executive session discussion of nearly three hours that was mostly about the AD search, most of the regents were in favor of Angelos — though they had no knowledge of the identities of the other three to five finalists that were recommended to Lassner by the search committee.
Lassner said he decided to pass on just one name to the regents: Angelos. Due to state sunshine law for public board meetings, he was publicly named as part of the May 18 board agenda last Friday. That left six days for the media to come up with stories and fans to discuss his potential fit while he and Lassner were not allowed to say anything.
Angelos, 61, who has worked in athletics administration for 30 years, said that element of the hiring process was new to him.
“That was very difficult, because you’re kind of laid bare … and you really can’t say much about it,” he said. “People can pick up on various entities, draw some conclusions here or there, and you want to give some perspective on that. The leadership change at Florida Atlantic, for example.”
His contract was not renewed by a new president, Mary Jane Saunders, at FAU in 2012 after he’d spent nearly nine years in Boca Raton. It came just months after he’d finished leading the way on construction of a 30,000-seat on-campus stadium as part of a $160 million multi-use facility.
He told Saunders in a meeting that “the place had never been better.” He said she turned down a naming opportunity for the stadium — a venue that has no primary sponsor to this day.
“People want to pick that apart as a negative experience, but it was fantastic,” Angelos said of his only head AD job to date. “So yeah, (this) was a difficult process.”
He also acknowledged a number of factors have to line up just right for someone to land such a job. He said he saw the position online, applied on his own and gained encouragement from his first interview, a Zoom call from New York with members of the search committee.
Actually confirming an AD was a brand-new process for the regents, who in days past, when there was a Manoa chancellor, were only responsible for signing off on the hire’s salary because the president confirmed the chancellor’s pick. Since the regents had no other candidates to critique, their task boiled down to whether they believed the Lassner-led process could produce the best candidate, board chairman Randolph Moore told Spectrum News.
Moore conceded the amount of media scrutiny was “disconcerting” through the six days leading up to Thursday’s meeting capped by a press conference that was held in the same HCC board room.
The topics the regents discussed in executive session included culture, fundraising and “basically the things that you look for in a leader in Hawaii in athletics,” Moore said.
“There was a lot of robust discussion. Very good discussion. I’m very pleased with the regents,” he said.
Several regents were critical of the hiring process as they gave open comments before the votes were cast. The regents learned of Lassner’s pick only when the general public did on Friday and could not conduct an interview of their own.
Moore, Alapaki Nahale-a, Ernest Wilson, Eugene Bal III, Wayne Higaki, William Haning III, Diane Paloma and Laurel Loo voted in favor.
“I’m supporting the candidate. I’m not supporting the process because I don’t think it allowed for enough time and public comment,” Loo said.
Regents Gabriel Lee and Laurie Tochiki voted no while Abigail Mawae, a student regent, expressed misgivings about the process, then abstained.
Lee said, “I’m against the candidate and will be voting no. I said everything I wanted to say in executive session. If he’s voted in, I’ll do everything I can to support him.”
Said Wilson, a board vice chair, “In the final analysis, I believe that based on the work the selection committee … we have a person who will take us where we need to go in terms of having an athletic program that I think all of us in Hawaii can be proud of.”
Lassner acknowledged that the process can be improved for the next staff position he will hire.
“I’ll be more clear up front and be clear with the regents about, step by step, what do we expect to have happen each and every day and I think that will improve things,” Lassner said.
Lassner had no regrets about not revealing the names of other finalists, saying that if he had, it would’ve adversely affected the candidate pool because prospects would be reluctant to apply knowing their name could be revealed while still in other high-profile jobs.
Lassner recommended a salary of $325,212 for Angelos, identical to Matlin’s, plus a $15,000 allowance for moving expenses.
Besides LIU, Angelos has been the No. 2 person in athletics at stops including Temple, Indiana and Miami, and has also worked at the NCAA interpreting rules as a legislative assistant.
Angelos led off his press conference by recounting one of his earliest memories of the islands during his BYU baseball days, an at-bat at what was then called Rainbow Stadium. He launched a shot down the left field line that he thought was gone — only to have it get caught up in the Manoa mist.
“When I was flying here today, I thought ‘this is a home run finally. I got a home run, at least for myself,’” Angelos said. “Hopefully it’s going to be for you guys, too.”
Editor's note: this story has been updated with statements and details from Craig Angelos' press conference. (May 18, 2023)
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.