More Jim Donovan News

Michael Tsai profiles new UH athletic director Jim Donovan.

"He's very deserving," Shoji said. "I've always thought we should have somebody who was a player, a coach and administrator. He's come up through the ranks. I think he understands where coaches are coming from and he had a good mentor in (former AD) Stan Sheriff. I think he'll listen to the coaches, which I feel is really, really important."

Brian McInnis writes about how the Awana family welcomed Jim Donovan when he first came to Hawaii as a player.

Stephen Tsai and Ferd Lewis interview Donovan. An excerpt:

Q: This football season UH will play at Florida and at Oregon State just two weeks apart. What is your philosophy on scheduling?

A: "In a nutshell, you want to be competitive but I'd like to avoid the extremes of a very high strength of schedule like this (2008) year and very low of last (2007) year. My thinking is only one, at the most, Division I-AA opponent, a couple of Bowl Championship Series opponents and a couple from non-BCS conferences. I'll work with coach (Greg) McMackin and get his input.

Dave Reardon has the first part of a two-part interview with Donovan. More about future scheduling:

I would be very interested in playing BYU again. And I think playing UNLV is very good for both schools.

Maybe even something with San Diego State in the future.

I'd like to reach out to the academies, maybe play some institutions in New York or Washington to get our players a different experience. Perhaps play at Annapolis (Md.), and check out Washington D.C. A lot of our kids maybe haven't been there. We want them to have an experience in addition to playing the football game.

The Advertiser's Leila Wai has a video interview with Jim Donovan.

The Star-Bulletin has started posting online video, and they have Donovan's press conference up in embeddable form:


Jim Donovan Press Conference from JG on Vimeo.

And finally, Donovan endorses David Matlin as his successor as executive director of the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl.