After a 2013 season with dismal 1-11 record, following a 3-9 season in 2012, some fans have called for University of Hawaii Head Football Coach Norm Chow to be fired.
On Tuesday, December 10, Chow dismissed two coaches who work under him: Thom Kaumeyer, the defensive coordinator who spent two seasons with the Warriors, and Tony Tuioti, the linebacker coach with the University since Chow’s predecessor, Greg McMackin.
The university in 2012 recruited Chow under a contract that pays him $550,008 annually plus bonuses – more than any other state employee including the governor, the president of the University of Hawaii and the head of the University’s John Burns School of Medicine.
The agreement allows the University to terminate Chow without cause if the coach is paid lump sum damages of the amount remaining on his contract through year four plus $200,000 for year five. Terms of the deal can be renegotiated annually after completion of the second year of the contract.
Chow, 67, grew up in Hawaii but has spent his coaching career on the Mainland, serving as an assistant coach at a number of universities and with the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League.
Since Chow took over, university ticket sales have slowed. During Chow’s first year as coach, ticket sales dropped to 20,821. This year, the University sold 18,194 of 50,000 seasons tickets available, the lowest number in at least the past 10 years.
Contrast that with 2008, the year the Warriors went to the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. The university set a record for ticket sales with 27,705; the next year it sold 23,976.
“The biggest revenue generation for the department is from UH football, and the fact that season tickets were down this year is a huge concern and impacts everything to do with athletics,” said Rep. Mark Takai, a graduate of the University who regularly attends its sporting events. Takai is a candidate for Congress in 2014.
For the 2013-14 school year for the University Warrior football team, the university budgeted $8,849,258.
The university’s booster clubs, including the Ahahui Koa Anuenue football booster club, contributed $6,959,495 million to the athletic department and its teams in fiscal 2013.
Athletics received $2,219,978 from corporate sponsors in fiscal 2011 and $2,316,861 in fiscal 2012.
Two years ago on December 5, 2011, then University of Hawaii head football coach Greg McMackin, stepped down waiving nearly half of his $1.1 million employment contract.
McMackin compiled a 29-26 record as head coach, guiding the Warriors to the championship of the Western Athletic Conference in 2010.
But the team stumbled badly in 2011 as McMackin was heading into the final year of his 5-year employment contract.
McMackin’s predecessor, June Jones, made $800,000-per year.
Jones, hired in 1998, was at the University of Hawaii for nine years, and was credited with resurrecting a football program with a 0-12 record.
Jones, a former University of Hawaii Warrior player, had a 76-41 record, including an undefeated season in 2007, which led the University’s invitation the Bowl Championship Series’ Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Jones, who had the distinction of being the coach with the most victories, left the Hawaii Warriors for Texas’ Southern Methodist University in January 2008 under a 5-year contract valued at $10 million.
So Norm Chow was an assistant coach for 38 years. That should pretty much tell you what he's cut out for. If Hawaii wants to recover, UH needs to pay what's required to get a good coach and we'll get good results. No more of this ridiculous "he has local roots, he understands Hawaii, he'll be good to the local people" crap. We need a Football Coach! We don't need a hula dancer !! UH picks so many loser coaches. 3 out of the last 4. Doesn't that tell you something??
I do think it takes a certain type of Coach to head up U of H teams. The program is riddled with difficulties just in putting on a season of games and having teams come into Hawaii and actually want to be there to play.
Norm Chow was a average assistant coach and Hawaii was his first head coaching job ever. He interviewed many, many times to head football programs on the mainland and Hawaii only took him because he was a cheap hire and a "local boy". Chow lacks leadership and team building skills so why quit a job which pays more than half million bucks a year. He will continue to lose games and only leave if fired. Congrats Rainbows on three more losing football seasons unless you fire or "release" the incompetent Chow the highest salaried public employee in Hawaii.
[…] After Dismal Season, University of Hawaii Warriors Release Two Football Coaches University of Hawaii college football has been on a losing streak, impacting athletic department revenues. After a 2013 season with dismal 1-11 record, following a 3-9 season in 2012, some fans have called for University of Hawaii Head Football Coach … Read more on Hawaii Reporter […]
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Poor Football coach, Poor Basketball coach (wins against nobodies), lip service president… Punahou please save face and buyout these rubber lippers..
Two great coaches with island ties just became available. Duane akina university of Texas and Rich Ellerson Army have been let go. They will not be out of work long…
Coaching in Hawaii has some special circumstances. I coached the linebackers for the old Hawaiians ot the WFL back in the Mid-Seventies. I had a really good local linebacker named Fiatola, but the head coach spent most of his time on offense and they were struggling. He needed to cut someone to bring in a waived NFL offensive player. It was not a popular decision on the island, and I took a lot of heat from locals, although Fiatola never said anything to me. The blowback from supporters of this local player was more than I had ever experienced, and I had coached at at three colleges, and even benched one NFL future draft pick at one of the places (back in the day when they drafted futures). Politics and 4th & Goal make strange bedfellows.
My son play for Chow At the University of Utah. I had coaches tell me he was a CANCER., He know football, but is such an condisending, arrogant Pr***** that he is despised by other coaches and players. Had he not left the University of Utah after one year, half the offensive skill guys were talking about leaving. I spoke to 10 players who had played for him years ago, when he was at BYU and all 10 of the fellows said they would never let their sons play for him. Arslanian who coached at Washington and now is the head coach at SC, is well known for his dislike with Chow. He started under Chow at BYU and still despises him. All I can say is Hawaii taking him was an answer to our prayers, because now one here wanted him and he was surely going to get fired as OC. Had he not left.
Why is he so disliked, because all Chow cares about is Chow. He will tell a player anything to recruit him and then not care about any promise he makes. He will NOT play people other coaches recruit, because he wants to look like a hero when his recruits do better. He treats assistant and other coaches like dogs, disrespects them and ignores any opinion they might have. Guess what fellows you are more likely to go 0-12 than 2-10 next year. Under Chow, your only hope for wins is a lot of Division 1A teams. All you can look forward with Chow is becoming the worst Football Team in Division 1 History.
As fans we want to see UH football rising up, winning games and getting to a bowl right? To be fair Chow wouldn't still be around coaching in D1 this long if he didn't get some results, considered an offensive guru and was a part of Nat Championship teams and some really great teams over all those years. It would seem the only thing left for him to prove career wise is that he can win as a head coach so I'm guessing he wants to win and to win now after all love & winning solves everything. The song that is sung by the schools, fans, boosters is Janet Jackson's "what have you done for me lately?"
He can turn it around fairly quickly by following the blueprint for successful, winning football by building up the defense. Look at all of the last few Super bwl, and Nat Champ teams just in the last few yrs; Seattle, Balt, Fla state, Bama, can't name one champshp team that had an average, or worse defense. So how to fix UH football in a hurry? Norm just needs to kick the ego out of the way be humble & hire the best def coordinator he can get & let that DC recruit & set up & run the defense with players that fit that system. Tough you say in one off season? Sure, easier said than done, but do-able.
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