When Herman Frazier bounded onto the University of Hawai'i campus in the summer of 2002, the school's new athletic director was hailed by then-president Evan Dobelle in a Bachman Hall coronation as "an American hero," whose arrival portended wonderful things for the school.

The reference was to Frazier's Olympic past, in which he won gold and bronze medals at the 1976 Olympiad, and an expression of the hoped-for Midas touch he might bring to help elevate Manoa athletics.

As his tenure rolls into its sixth year today, a lot of that potential remains to be delivered upon.

There have been five-year plans, master plans, capital plans and long-range plans. Administration has been reconfigured. Fees raised.

What there needs to be now are results to match the projections and promises.

To be sure, the key to the state's only Division I-A athletic program came with major challenges and lofty expectations. A successful UH athletic director, one Manoa official put it, has to be like a deity, "... on a good day."

But it shouldn't take a divine touch to fill out the football schedule or balance the budget — two prominent areas where Frazier's tenure has been lacking.

By year five of that administration, a football schedule — the only major schedule the AD actually works on — should have been long since cast in stone. Especially for one whose contacts have been so heralded. That it hasn't been, especially befitting a season in which UH has its first real Heisman Trophy candidate, is a huge disappointment.

But of bigger, more enduring concern are budget and facilities issues. Though UH announced a balanced budget for 2006 — and should expect one for the just-completed fiscal year — it is running a $4.2 million unrestricted net deficit, according to auditors. The scary part is if there is that much of a deficit stored up when times are good, what happens if one or more of the major programs experience a real downturn?

Facilities were a concern even before Colt Brennan spoke out. Getting the money to do something about them comes down to an administration coaxing donors to pitch in and help out. Hopefully, the recent naming-rights initiative pushed by Frazier and approved by the Board of Regents will soon be productive.

Frazier has done some praiseworthy things in his tenure, keeping UH largely out of the NCAA doghouse and running a quality, broad-based department among them.

But for one of whom so much has been expected more needs to be produced.

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