It didn’t take long for the financial impact of the COVID-19 induced cancellation of fall sports to claim its first coaching victim at the University of Hawaii.
Barely 24 hours after the plug was pulled on the Rainbow Warriors’ football season, it was announced Tuesday that beach volleyball head coach Jeff Hall will not be retained as a cost-saving measure.
After parts of six seasons at the helm of the SandBows and five trips to national championship tournaments, Hall was let go in the first of several cost-cutting moves.
Hall, despite a 136-38 record and Big West Coach of the Year honors in 2016 and ‘18, was believed to be one of the lowest-paid head coaches at UH. The school would not disclose the salary, but the position had the lowest listed starting pay of any head coach and a range of $50,000-$85,008.
Hall’s teams took third twice and fourth twice in national championship tournaments. They were expected to contend again for a national title this year until the pandemic cut short their season in March after nine matches.
Women’s indoor volleyball head coach Robyn Ah Mow will oversee both programs and associate coach Angelica Ljungqvist will replace Hall as the beach head coach and remain an indoor assistant, UH said.
“This is the model that was in place when the beach program began,” athletic director David Matlin said. “We moved away from it to allow both programs to have separate staffs, but it is just not feasible anymore.”
Gone are the visions of a combined $1.4 million UH was to have received from football road appearances at Arizona and Oregon as well as potentially millions more from lucrative home dates with UCLA and Boise State, had there been fans in the seats, pay-per-view or a share of Mountain West TV rights money.
Meanwhile, on the flip side, there was nearly
$20 million in salaries for coaches and support staff that the athletic department could still be on the hook for. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, the most recently audited period, those salaries made up the largest share of expenditures, about 37%.
There is also athletic student aid of about $11.3 million as well as an inevitable drop in the athletic fees charged the student body and likelihood of reduced media rights and other income.
A portion of that will be offset by nearly $2 million in savings from not having to pay guarantees and travel subsidies to visiting teams as well as UH’s own canceled travel.
What that currently might add up to, Matlin has so far declined to say. “But, obviously, it is going to impact the finances of the department and we’re going to have to be incredible stewards of our resources.”
UH President David Lassner said Monday, “Football is a major revenue driver for our athletics program and it supports largely the cost of many of non-revenue sports. At this point, UH has a hole like pretty much every public university in the country and the entire state of Hawaii.”
Like 90% of its NCAA Division I brethren, UH athletics relies on substantial support from the university and the state. At UH, that direct support amounted to nearly
$16 million for FY 2019, a figure that is less than many of its peer institutions.
With growing questions about how UH will cover operating costs, sadly, even one of its most successful coaches wasn’t safe.