O‘ahu in 2000: University of Hawai‘i Football Coach June Jones is Islander of the Year
He turned down a job with the NFL’s San Diego Chargers to head up a UH team.
HONOLULU Magazine emerged as Paradise of the Pacific in 1888, commissioned by King Kalākaua himself, making it the oldest continuously publishing magazine west of the Mississippi. Here’s a dive into our archives.
HONOLULU selects University of Hawai‘i football coach June Jones as Islander of the Year, praising him for his leadership in “one of the greatest turnaround seasons in college football history.”
He turned down a job with the NFL’s San Diego Chargers to head up a UH team that had just wrapped a winless 1998 season. A year later, he led the Rainbow Warriors to a 9-4 season, culminating in a victory over Oregon State in the O‘ahu Bowl. “There are two words for our success: June Jones. He believed in us,” says Dan Robinson, UH’s quarterback at the time.
Jones, who was at one point the highest-paid public employee in Hawai‘i, went on to coach nine seasons at UH. In his last season in 2007, he and Heisman candidate and quarterback Colt Brennan led the unbeaten UH Warriors to the Sugar Bowl.
Since then, UH has been up and down, but has renewed vigor under its 23rd head coach, former UH quarterback Nick Rolovich.
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