When the First Hawaiian Bank State/Hawai'i High School Athletic Association Football Championships outdrew the University of Hawai'i's final football game, it should have been pause for thought on several levels.

Especially at UH, where the Warriors were bested at the box office for only the second time in the 33 combined years of the state championship and the O'ahu Prep Bowl. Clearly, when it comes to getting the crowd out and making its game an event, the HHSAA is doing something right.

So, when it was announced yesterday that UH is reopening its search to fill the No. 2 spot in the athletic department, the name of Keith Amemiya, the HHSAA's executive director, immediately rockets to mind.

With the two top candidates — based in Colorado and Indiana — for associate athletic director having already turned the job down or withdrawn from consideration, why not look a little closer to home?

Increasingly the athletic department has gone out of state to fill its vacancies. To the point, apparently, where people are beginning to detect an Evan Dobelle-like parallel here only with Arizona State overtones.

Whether Amemiya will be a candidate for the associate AD position remains to be seen. Yesterday he declined comment on his intentions saying he didn't immediately know what the parameters were.

For the high school community, Amemiya is somebody that would be tough to lose. But if you're UH, he's somebody who merits a look on performance.

The way people around UH explain it, the vacant associate AD job shapes up to be a chief of staff position. With athletic director Herman Frazier intent on pushing his capital improvement plans, it looks like whoever takes over the No. 2 spot is going to inherit a lot of the day-to-day operations.

Where Frazier's previous right-hand man, Tom Sadler, was primarily versed in facilities, his replacement will have to be more well-rounded and community-rooted. This is where Amemiya would make a good fit. For in running the HHSAA, he's had to wear many caps and master multiple tasks. Not only are there more than 30 separate state championships to be run, there are sponsorships to be sold, compliance issues to be dealt with, corridors of power to be negotiated and promotions to be run.

Amemiya, an attorney by trade and a sports fan by heart, has shown himself to be someone of vision given what he's guided the HHSAA to with the two-tiered state football championships and events such as the four-team showdown that brought No. 1-ranked De La Salle and Long Beach Poly here to play Saint Louis and Kahuku.

The solution to UH's associate AD vacancy could be right here. It would be a shame if, in looking far and wide, UH missed what was right in its backyard.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.