DOBO is Okeson

At last, Hawaii has a new men’s basketball director of operations.

Jamie Smith’s replacement is none other than Todd Okeson. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he played against UH four times as the Nevada Wolf Pack’s point guard in the old WAC.

Okeson, 34, has been out here for several days now. It was pretty striking for him to set foot on the Manoa campus again from his UNR playing days in 2003 and 2004. UH and Reno split their meetings those seasons 2-2, with each defending home court twice.

“Oh yeah, it brought back some memories. Some good ones, some painful ones,” Okeson said. “We got a few losses over here. It was always the funnest place to play. That goes without saying. We got out of the snow in Reno and got to see some sunshine. … We always had a great time.”

Okeson most recently was a three-year assistant coach (2013-16) at Southern Utah of the Big Sky. His boss, Nick Robinson, was fired in March coming off a five-win season and 28-90 mark over four years. Okeson was the interim head coach at SUU for about a month and applied for the permanent gig, unsuccessfully, under a new athletic director.

“They hired their guy (Todd Simon) and that was the end of that,” Okeson said.

He said UH assistant Adam Jacobsen, an acquaintance in the coaching fraternity, reached out to him early this summer to gauge Okeson’s interest about the position at Manoa opening up.

“I told him I’d love to do it,” Okeson said. “I watched Hawaii in the tournament, obviously, and followed them a little bit last year because I’m a basketball junkie, finding good teams, surprise teams to keep track of. You’re talking about the islands, you already have a good sell there. It was just a long process, you gotta weigh your options and when it came down to it, I was happy to take this job and happy to even be considered, to be honest with you.”

Here’s what UH coach Eran Ganot had to say in a statement:

“We’re excited that Todd and his wonderful family will be joining our program. Todd possesses all the qualities we’re looking for. First and foremost, he’s a man of impeccable character. He has strong values and will be a terrific mentor for our student-athletes. He’s also very experienced — he’s been in both coaching and operations and has had a hand in every facet of running a program. Todd will bolster an already strong coaching staff we having coming back and enable us to continue to move forward from an operational standpoint.”

UH grad assistant Zane Johnson’s name came up often for the position as well, but it looks like he’s going to remain a GA here for the coming season.

While Okeson’s previous coaching gig didn’t work out, the small-town Kansan was a formidable player in the WAC, helping the Pack to the Sweet 16 in 2004 with the likes of Kirk Snyder and Nick Fazekas. He was a two-year player in Reno coming out of junior college.

“There’s some of them that still hang around Reno,” Okeson said of that team’s players. “A good core of them have kept in touch.”

That 2004 team is set to be inducted into Nevada’s hall of fame sometime this fall. Okeson isn’t sure if he’ll be able to make it out for that, depending on the timing and his duties here.

Here were Okeson’s outings against UH:
Jan. 25, 2003, Lawlor Events Center: 14 pts, 5-10 FG, 4 stl, 3 ast, 3 TO, 73-65 UNR
Feb. 19, 2003, Stan Sheriff Center: 8 pts, 3-9 FG, 3 stl, 3 ast, 2 TO, 73-71 UH
Jan. 5, 2004, Stan Sheriff Center: 4 pts, 1-5 FG, 3 ast, 7 TO, 60-53 UH
March 4, 2004, Lawlor Events Center: 18 pts, 5-12 FG, 2 ast, 0 TO, 77-64 UNR

You can see he bounced back from a poor performance to finish on a high note just as Nevada was gearing up for its impressive tournament run, with victories over Michigan State and Gonzaga. It’s considered the Pack’s best all-time hoops team.

Okeson and his wife have a 7-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. After his Nevada days, he had a brief playing career overseas, then, when he suffered a midseason injury, latched on with former UNR coach Mark Fox’s staff at Nevada and later Georgia as a DOBO.

“I’ve been around (coaching) ever since. I love basketball, I love what I do,” Okeson said. “I love working with people, using my knowledge from when I played, maybe what worked, what didn’t work. This is what I do, what I love to do. I’m just happy to still be doing it, to be honest with you.”

The DOBO position lacks much of the allure of a full assistant — primarily because you can’t coach or recruit, except in certain situations where another coach on staff takes a leave from the team. This past season, Smith couldn’t even step foot in the gym during practice because of the NCAA sanctions (that part comes off for the coming season).

Okeson’s situation, going from interim head coach to DOBO, is a little akin to when Kerry Rupp needed a job coming off his years at Louisiana Tech. Of course, you’d expect UH to not abuse the position now as they did then under Gib Arnold, which led to some of the infamous (and STILL appealed) sanctions.

Okeson isn’t averse to some grunt work.

“It is what it is,” he said. “At Southern Utah it was a small enough program that we all had a hand in everything. So I wouldn’t say it’s dusting it off (those responsibilities), but it will take some time to get used to. Shoot, they were already putting me in the fire this week so I’m ready to go.”

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As for UH’s most recent player addition, Israeli center Ido Flaisher is here and enrolled in school. My understanding is, the reason he hasn’t been made official/announced by UH yet is because he’s still going through some additional hoops required of international players to be cleared by the NCAA.