In the last few weeks, the University of Hawaii has lost 2 legends in the world of athletics.
One was the longtime sportscaster Jim Leahey.
The other was former football coach Greg McMackin (aka Coach Mack)
Jim Leahey
For decades, Jim Leahey was The Voice for UH sports. His voice appeared in the live broadcasts for many sports, including, but not limited to football, basketball, baseball, and volleyball. His voice spoke a passion for the teams, the university and the state of Hawaii. For many big plays, it was his voice that expressed the excitement that the fans feel. However, he was also known to be objective and didn't hesitate to critique bad plays from the team.
Here's how Hawaii News Now described Jim Leahey's passion, talent and work ethic
If Hawaii had a sports soundtrack, undoubtedly Jim Leahey’s voice would be the one doing the play-by-play.
For decades his calls of sporting events drew listeners and viewers right into the action.
He had a special knack for doing it.
“The words that you use come from reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, and it doesn’t have to be sports, it can be anything else, because then you can compare and contrast. That ball is Aloha -- homerun. That ball is Aloha,” he once said in an interview.
“I remember working with him for so many years. There were times something would happen in the course of a game. He would describe something and I was getting ready to jump in to say something, and he’d grab my arm and basically said, ‘No. Let the crowd do the talking,’” said Artie Wilson, a friend and broadcast partner.
Leahey’s trademark style utilized a command of the English language that never failed to paint a vivid picture, and he was meticulous in his preparation.
“He would spend hours and hours and hours preparing for every game and color coding this and that – a tremendous amount of preparation. I remember walking by his desk and saying, ‘Do you really have to do all of this to do a game?’ And he looked up and me and he said, ‘No, you don’t have to. Only if you want to do it right,” sportscaster Larry Beil said.
Sports broadcasting was like a family business for Leahey. His father, Chuck Leahey did the radio broadcasting for Hawaii sports from the 1950s -1970s. And now his son, Kanoa Leahey is taking on the tradition for TV broadcasts.
Jim & Kanoa also had a weekly TV show where they debated the sports news of the day. Jim jokingly portrayed the set-in-the-old-ways persona in contrast to the youthful Kanoa.
Jim retired in 2018. He died on January 30, 2022 at the age of 80.
Learn more on Jim Leahey at
tributes from the University of Hawaii
An article from 2009 about Chuck, Jim and Kanoa Leahey
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Coach Mack
Greg McMackin (aka Coach Mack) was the football coach at the University of Hawaii.
His first coaching stint at UH was in 1999 as the defensive coordinator under the-then new head coach June Jones.
Under the previous coaching regime (under Fred von Appen), the team went 0-12.
Obviously, there was pressure when Jones and Mack came on the scene. Back then, the transfer policy for college athletes was much stricter than it is now, so Jones and Mack had to win with mostly the same players from the year before.
And they did in one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history. The 1999 team went 9-4 and won a bowl game.
The following year, Coach Mack left for a higher paying position as a defensive coordinator at Texas Tech. Then in 2002-2005, he was an assistant coach for the San Francisco 49ers.
But in 2007, Coach Mack came back to Hawaii to become defensive coordinator again under June Jones.
2007 was another legendary year for UH football as the team went 12-0 in the regular season with Colt Brennan as the QB! Sadly, the season ended with a lopsided loss to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
It wasn't long when June Jones decided to leave UH for Southern Methodist University (SMU). It was assumed that Coach Mack was going to join Jones at SMU. But Mack decided to stick around at UH and got a promotion as head coach.
2008 was already predicted to be a tough year for UH. Jones already left, and QB Colt Brennan graduated. And top receivers Davone Bess & Ryan Grice-Mullins decided to leave early to go pro. And to make it worse, the season started with a game at Florida back when that program was at its peak with coach Urban Meyer and QB Tim Tebow. The 2008 season for UH started just like 2007 ended, with a big loss to an SEC power.
However, UH did win most of its games with a slightly better than average 7-6 record. But the season ended with a bowl game loss to Notre Dame. To add insult to injury, Notre Dame's notoriously grumpy coach Charlie Weis was smiling more than usual in the game.
But Coach Mack's drama with Notre Dame didn't end there.
At a press conference in the summer of 2009, Coach Mack was talking about his experience at the bowl game and called Notre Dame's chant a "faggot dance". He knew he just said the wrong words and even begged the reporters there to not report it. That wasn't going to happen in an era when social media was just getting started.
Though most people who said such words usually get fired, Coach Mack had such a nice-guy public persona that the university just gave him a 30-day suspension and mandatory sensitivity training.
The controversy was such a distraction that it likely led to a slightly less-than-average 2009 season at 6-7.
The following year, 2010 was Coach Mack's best season in which the team went 10-3 in the regular season, and won a share of the WAC championship.
That team has great offensive players like Greg Salas, Kealoha Pilares, and Alex Green. All were in their final college year and went on to the NFL.
2011 was going to be a rebuilding year. The top defense players were there, but most of the top offense players from the previous year were gone. The team went 6-7, slightly less than average.
I felt Coach Mack deserved another chance, but many of the UH fans didn't. They wanted the success that the team had under June Jones, and they weren't satisfied with a slightly-less-than average year right after a great 2010 season. But in this century, it's all about "what have you done for me lately".
After the 2011 season, it was announced that Coach Mack was going to retire.
However, the truth came out that Coach Mack "got retired", meaning he was pressured by UH administration to accept retirement or else he was going to be fired.
Then UH Athletic Director Jim Donovan later expressed regret for the way Coach Mack was pushed out of his position. Donovan claimed that it wasn't his decision to "retire" Coach Mack, and that it was university administration's decision.
Donovan said, "I was told by the chairman of the Board of Regents, who, at that time was Eric Martinson, that I was to talk to coach McMackin about taking a $600,000 buyout in lieu of a $1.1 million buyout. I shared with him that I had talked with Coach McMackin about it for two or three weeks and that I had gotten him down to like $800,000 and I just didn’t know if I could push it down to $600,000."
But Donovan said, "I was told that I could share with him that there was authority for me to agree to a deal at $600,000 and nothing more and that if he didn’t agree to $600,000 he would be put on leave with pay pending an investigation.
"So, I met with him after the banquet and Virgina Hinshaw was there with me. After about two hours he finally agreed to the $600,000 buyout, a reduction of $500,000. And I called the chairman of the board the next morning and told him we were successful."
Donovan told the committee, "I don’t know what investigation would have occurred. There was an on-going investigation that was one of the two that Dennis Chong Kee (of the Cades Schutte law form) was working on. From the day I was aware of those allegations I believed them to be wholly false. And, at the end of that investigation, the allegations were not proven. I don’t know if they were referring to another investigation or referring to that investigation, I don’t know."
Donovan did not give the details on what was being investigated, nor was he pressed by panel members.
And who did UH hire to replace Coach Mack?
It was Norm Chow, a longtime offensive coordinator at various colleges (BYU, USC, UCLA, Utah) who grew up in Hawaii.
People expected great things from Norm Chow at UH.
But EVERY SINGLE SEASON under Norm Chow WAS WORSE THAN ANY SEASON under Coach Mack.
Coach Mack's record as UH head football coach was 29-25.
Norm Chow? 10-36.
Chow got fired from UH in 2015 after a really bad loss to Air Force Academy on Halloween night.
UH should've sticked with Coach Mack!
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Coach Mack passed on Valentines Day 2023 at the age of 77. The cause of death wasn't publicly announced.
Here is Honolulu Star-Advertiser's article on Coach Mack after his death
Rolovich recalled McMackin as a family man who brought his wife, their daughter, and two grandchildren to practices and football-related events. “He loved his family,” Rolovich said. “His family was always involved. It showed a great lesson for all the young people in the program. I thought that was a good message. That’s appreciated in Hawaii, especially.”
Miano, who served as McMackin’s associate head coach, said the Oregon-reared McMackin “quickly adapted to Hawaii and its culture. … We’d go into a movie theater, and he’d buy popcorn for everybody in line. He was that kind of guy. He’d see people, and extend his aloha and generosity. People loved him because he was so gregarious.”
From Honolulu Star-Advertiser's sportswriter Dave Reardon
https://news.yahoo.com/dave-reardon-mcmackin-did-best-170600859.html
But the most positive part of his legacy with the Warriors is as the defensive coordinator in two of the greatest seasons in program history.
Without McMackin's defense in 1999 there is no greatest turnaround in college football history. Without McMackin's defense in 2007 there is no undefeated regular season and once-in-a-lifetime Sugar Bowl berth.
I wasn't here in'99. But all you have to do is look at the game-by-game scores to see that the defense did much of the heavy lifting for the nine victories, especially in the early part of the season while the newly installed run-and-shoot gained its footing.
I did see every game up close in'07. The offense got the headlines, but the defense made the deadlines ... McMackin's unit was at its best late in close games and overtime.
