Hawaii athletic director Ben Jay announced his resignation on Tuesday just four months after telling the university’s board of regents that he wasn’t sure the football program could survive in the new climate of college athletics.
Jay’s resignation will be effective at the end of the school year in June. Hawaii interim Chancellor Robert Bley a search for a new athletic director would begin in January.
Jay cited family as the reason for his resignation, but he had also failed to help the athletic department overcome a $3 million deficit, which he claimed back in August was due, in part, by the failures of the football program.
"We're going to have to generate more revenue," Jay told Hawaii News Now in August. "There's no doubt about that. We've always had to do that. People want to support football and basketball and baseball and all of our other sports, so it's going to come down to how are we going to get that support financially from our fan base and from all the folks who love UH athletics."
The university has operated in a deficit in 11 of the past 13 years.
Declining attendance at football games had contributed to Hawaii losing money. This season, the Rainbow Warriors averaged 27,451 during its seven home games in a 50,000-seat stadium. The program went 4-9 last season and hasn’t had a winning season since going 10-4 in 2010. Despite the struggles, Jay announced that football coach Norm Chow would be retained. He is 8-29 in three seasons with the program.
Jay was hired to replace Jim Donovan in 2012 after Donovan was scammed out of $200,000 of the university’s money while trying to book a benefit concert with Stevie Wonder.
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