Video - State Senators Tour Facilities

Several state senators toured the facilities today. Covering the festivities were KGMB, KITV and KHON. Here's an excerpt from the KHON story:

Their first stop, Wasted space, meant to be state of the art offices for coach june jones and his staff. An empty promise since 2002.

"To me to have left this like this is ridiculous," said Senator Donna Mercado Kim.

Not far away, another empty office overlooks cooke field, where there's more unfinished business- new turf promised, but not delivered.

"I think it's a disgrace the leadership in this university hasn't looked at this and said hey this is a priority if we have a coach asking for this," said Senator Kim.

In May, Colt Brennan helped get the ball rolling for improvements. But other than soap, not much has changed. The football team's computer room is still unusable.

"What's happening to all this equipment and space? Nothing," said Assistant Athletic Director Terry Chang.

Senators say the university never made a request for money for athletics facilities.

Hope this is a big step towards some change.

In other video news, KITV's Rob DeMello reports that Na Koa is endorsing Greg McMackin for next UH football head coach.

UPDATE: Here's a late report from KHON's Gina Mangieri about the facilities and the pay for coaches.

"Of course we welcome donations to the program for the purpose of supporting the coach's salary, but we're not going to be hung up on any particular proportion,” said UH President David McClain, who said a private booster pledge of $875,000 toward June Jones’ last contract fell short with $455,000 raised.

“Inevitably not all pledge goals are met, and not all pledges are fulfilled,” McClain said.

Instead, the next coach’s salary will come from whatever mix of booster money comes in, plus athletic and general funds. Also in executive session, they talked about more than just the head football coach.

"One of the things the chancellor and I are committed to is raising the compensation level for all the coaches,” McClain said, “and that i think is essential to having an effective and high-performing program."