Recapping statements by public officials, university employees, credible reports surrounding firing of UH AD Angelos

It’s been two weeks since Brett McMurphy of the Action Network first reported that University of Hawai’i at Manoa Athletics Director Craig Angelos was dismissed by outgoing UH president David Lassner.

Here is everything that is known about the ordeal based on reporting by credible sources and news organizations as well as statements by public officials and university employees when it became available.

McMurphy first posted the news on X at 3:29 a.m. HST on Nov. 19., citing that Angelos’ last day would be on Dec. 1. He mentioned that no reasons for the firing were provided by Lassner and added that Angelos recently helped negotiate the university’s full-time membership into the Mountain West, saving the school $1 million annually in travel subsidies.

About seven hours later, Stephen Tsai of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that Angelos will receive three months pay as part of his separation package and that Lois Manin, Associate Athletics Director for Internal Operations and Senior Woman Administrator, will be the interim AD beginning on Dec. 2.

At 12:26 p.m. the same day, Tsai reported that Angelos was told in person on Nov. 13 that he would not be retained as AD.

Word got out that there would be an all-hands athletic department meeting at 3 p.m. which saw many media members arrive on scene outside of the lower campus lecture hall.

Brian McInnis of Spectrum News reported that the meeting was brief and that on his way out, Angelos told media members “They told me it’s official. That’s all I know.” Tsai also reported that Angelos noted that the move appeared to be irreversible.

At 4:02 p.m., UH put out an official statement to announce the news of Angelos’ firing, stating that “Lassner made the decision to part ways with Angelos based on performance” and that this was a “confidential personnel matter.”

Angelos, who was an at-will employee who did not have a contract, later put out a statement on X along with an email sent by the media relations department that said he was “completely blindsided” of Lassner’s decision and was “absolutely shocked” when Lassner told him the reason was due to Angelos’ performance.

Daryl Huff of Hawaii News Now was at the State Capitol that same day and spoke to a few lawmakers. Sen. Glenn Wakai, the Senate’s leader on redevelopment of Aloha Stadium, was surprised of the move.

“A lot of the public, not just the Senate, are just shaking their heads as to how can a guy who’s been doing a great job be fired,” Wakai told HNN. “There has to be other issues at play here.

“He was putting up championship teams, saving money, bringing in money then poof, that all disappeared this morning,” Wakai said.

Higher Education Chair Rep. Andrew Takuya Garrett told HNN: “I was pretty surprised because on the surface, he was doing a pretty good job.”

Garrett added: “I think people are going to rightfully have pause if they want to consider working at the university. I don’t know what the plans are here going forward, and again, just to make it clear, I’m not sure exactly what happened in this particular case and I would love to hear from the university again on why they think this is the best path forward.”

Huff also reports that Gov. Josh Green declined to comment (at the time), but his director of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DEBDT), hinted to HNN’s Spotlight Now that he knew it was coming.

“I do know that there were conversations and concerns with what was happening at the university, and it’s a tough time,” Tokioka said on HNN’s Spotlight Now.

The next morning, men’s basketball coach Eran Ganot and football coach Timmy Chang were available for comment during their standard media availability.

“Everybody is kind of in the same boat in terms of the surprised about when you hear the news, and why surprised? Because there’s no, nothing that could tell you that (this) was coming,” Ganot said in Rob DeMello’s news report for KHON.

“If we go to a performance and then character and both were high. I and some of the folks I spoke to haven’t seen anything contrary to that. Anything that could be different, I don’t know about,” Ganot also said.

“Craig is a great person,” Chang said in the same news report. “Not talking about work or anything else, just talking about people. Great person. I enjoyed our conversations and our work together and his vision and the things he was trying to do for our university.”

Twenty-four hours after the all-hands meeting by the athletic department on Nov. 19, the media relations department released a statement by Manin to “set the record straight with facts and not conjecture.”

Manin states: “first of all, let me be very clear. I will not be applying for the permanent position.”

She also revealed that she had applied for the UH AD job when David Matlin retired in June 2023 before Angelos was ultimately hired. She stated: “I was disappointed that I was not selected, but not surprised,” and that she told Angelos within the first 30 seconds of meeting him that “she was prepared to support him fully.”

Also in the statement Manin says her goal is to help in the transition and “continue the momentum that Craig and the team has created during his time here” and that she doesn’t “intend to lead a department that is static or mediocre.”

Lassner spoke publicly for the first time on Nov. 21 at the scheduled UH Board of Regents meeting at Bachmann Hall, which is scheduled multiple months, if not a year, in advance.

A number of UH student-athletes were on hand for the BOR meeting while a handful of current and former student-athletes provided written and oral testimony on the agenda item honoring the outgoing president, using the moment to voice their support of Angelos and speaking against the dismissal.

After the testimony period, Lassner addressed the athletics situation before giving his president’s report.

He states that some of the written testimony that is posted includes “ugly lies” and condemns “conspiracy theories circulating on social media and online.”

The outgoing president recounts the hiring process of Angelos and says that he “personally selected” Angelos to serve as AD with the “advice and counsel of a Search Advisory Committee” and also affirmed that the firing was based on his “overall evaluation of Angelos’ performance.”

Lassner acknowledged Angelos’ leadership and roles in some of his accomplishments that he and his supporters cites, but noted that university presidents comprise the boards of athletic conferences.

He also said that Angelos and he met regularly since he was hired, twice a month if possible. Lassner added that as part of the standard UH evaluation process, an anonymous online survey of constituents give feedback that they refer to as a “360,” and that outside of Human Resources, “only the supervisor has access to those results” and that person is him, as the AD position is a direct report to president.

The timing of the announcement was also addressed by Lassner. He mentioned that he was thinking about removing Angelos from his post earlier in the year, but did not want it to be a “major distraction” during the search of the new president that would take over for Lassner when he retired at the end of the calendar year. Wendy Hensel will lead the UH system and its 10 campuses as president in Jan. 2025.

Lassner would then go on to address rumors and conspiracy theories that surfaced online and various platforms and specifically called them out in detail.

At the end of Lassner’s speech, Regent Gabe Lee, the chair of the 11-person BOR, said he had one comment and claimed that Lassner mentioned the Mountain West Conference, although Lassner never mentioned the Mountain West specifically, nor does the term appear in his official transcript.

Lee said the “presidents sit on the board, so it’s not the athletic directors” that is on the board of the athletic conferences. Lassner confirmed that he sits on the board of both the Mountain West and Big West, where most UH-Manoa sports compete in until July 2026, and also said “the conference commissioners are advised by the athletics directors.”

Hawai’i women’s basketball coach Laura Beeman referenced Lassner’s comments when she met with the media later that day when asked about the AD situation.

“It’s an incredibly sad time, it’s an incredibly important time. We have to find solutions and move forward,” she said. “I felt that, there was some more clarity today with president Lassner’s comments, I definitely had some frustration with some of the silence, but I do understand why.”

Beeman added: “The rest of the country and conferences are going to continue to move forward, regardless of where we are as a department and I think the sooner we can move forward the better.”

She continued: “We have to have a huge discussion within our community, within our system, within the (Legislature), do we want to win or are we committed to winning? That to me says it all.”

The comments by Lassner and Beeman would be the last time that anyone employed by the university spoke publicly about the removal of Angelos as AD.

After a delayed silence when McMurphy first broke the news, numerous information and statements from multiple university employees came out over a three-day period to paint a picture after the abrupt firing of Angelos by Lassner.

That could have been the end of the story.

But it wasn’t.

In a report for KHON later that same day, DeMello was able to get comments from Gov. Green.

“There had been some turmoil behind the scenes, it’s not my place to air anyone’s dirty laundry,” said Gov. Green.

He also said that he doesn’t micromanage those decisions, leaving it to the president and the BOR.

Gov. Green added: “I did ask everyone to take a deep breath and wait for the new president to come on to settle matters because we’re going into a new conference, we’re going into a new budget cycle for the university. We want to make sure we maintain our reputation at the highest level.”

DeMello also reported on the potential Nike/BSN Sports apparel deal with UH the next day before getting a statement from the university.

“President Lassner has reached out to assure our prospective partners that the change in Athletic Department leadership changes nothing about the University of Hawaiʻi’s interest in the relationship and that we look forward to completing the good work that Director Angelos started,” the statement said regarding the potential apparel deal.

There were new information for over a week since then from people that would speak on the record, but Gov. Green joined HNN’s sunrise set in studio on Manin’s first day as acting AD and made even more comments about the situation.

“In the months that ran up to Craig being relieved or not having his contract re-up, there had been a lot of contentious conflicts, not from me, but a lot of people in the background were upset about how joining the Mountain West was handled, about whether or not we made an adequate play to join other conferences so the president decided not to re-up him,” Gov. Green said.

“There also had been some, just some differences of opinion.”

Gov. Green added that Angelos is a very good human being so he feels bad that he wasn’t retained, but is ready to turn the page by saying this gives incoming president Hensel “an opportunity to create her own team, her own staff, and I think that that’s good as we head towards the new stadium, which we’re pushing forward onto.”

He also said: “I don’t like to micromanage these issues. I like to leave it into the hands of experts, and so it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that they don’t tell me because I really try not to put my thumb on the scale.”

To the public eye, the university has moved on from the situation. On Manin’s first day as acting AD, she gave Chang a one-year extension that should help during a critical time period for the football program with the transfer portal and recruiting season.

Will anymore information come to light over Lassner’s firing of Angelos?

Time will tell.

At the end of the day, it only counts if it can be attributed to an individual or organization that is willing to go on record.