Admit it University of Hawai'i football fans, you really didn't want to see Fresno State head coach Pat Hill leave for the NFL, now did you?

You want him on that opposing sideline this season pacing frantically back and forth, waving that well-worn red cap like a mad man. You want the opportunity to see him suffer another loss to the Warriors someday soon in the openly painful way in which he takes defeats like few others.

Had the coach that Warriors fans love to hate gone skedaddling off to the pros, it would have taken a measure of the fun out of 2006 season. After Dan Hawkins bolted Boise State last month, could the Western Athletic Conference really have afforded to lose Hill, too?

I mean, can anybody even name more than two opposing WAC head coaches from last season beside Hill and Hawkins?

So when Hill announced yesterday that the trademark Fu Manchu would remain at Fresno State, giving up the month-long flirtation with NFL vacancies for a contract extension through 2010, it was something of a relief. Especially here since there remains the real possibility that UH and FSU could meet twice this season if they are unable to fill out their non-conference schedules.

Well, maybe, it isn't that popular everywhere. The Fresno-based Web site firepathill.com that opened amid the Bulldogs' four-game season-ending losing streak headlined Hill's return as "Black Wednesday."

Of course, you suspect it is precisely because of the kind of grief Hill has taken for being unable to win the WAC of late or deliver the Bulldogs to a Bowl Championship Series game that he engaged in the NFL courtship dance in the first place.

You imagine Hill never really wanted to leave San Joaquin Valley, where he has a parking spot for his red Hummer right behind the office and a 72-43 record. Where he fits in with fruit packers in Fowler and raisin barons in Reedley.

Rather than really return to the NFL from where he came to the Bulldogs, more likely Hill just wanted a measure of assurance from the new athletic director, Thomas Boeh, and love from the restless Red Wave, as the Fresno fans are known. The highest-paid coach in the WAC at what is a reported a near-million bucks a season, just needed to know his considerable labors of the past nine seasons are appreciated and his "anybody, anytime, anywhere" scheduling vision is shared.

Some of the most dogmatic coaches are funny that way. For all their bluster they can be surprisingly thin-skinned and in need of reassurance. And so it seems with Hill, who has invested his heart and soul in trying to take the Bulldogs to places most mid-major non-BCS schools scarcely dream about.

In his case, the NFL's loss remains the WAC's and, indeed, UH's gain.

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