Saint Louis hires Chad Konishi as athletics director

Saint Louis hired Chad Konishi as its new athletics director, school president Glenn Medeiros said Wednesday.

Konishi most recently was the athletics director at St. Francis, and before that, spent 12 years as Mike Trapasso‘s pitching coach with the University of Hawaii baseball team.

The hire is part of a restructuring of the Crusaders’ athletic administration.

Previously, Ryan Blangiardi and Gerald Welch were co-athletic directors. Welch, who is a second-grade teacher at the school and on football coach Cal Lee‘s staff, will remain as an associate AD.

Blangiardi, who was offered the post of associate AD along with Welch, has resigned.

“Our enrollment is the highest it’s been in about 20 years,” Medeiros said. “So there is a need to have more people (running the athletic department). Chad brings a ton of experience and is the right guy for the position. Ryan did a lot for us in the last two years and we were very lucky to have him, and Gerald is a real up-and-comer.”

Konishi is a former Punahou pitcher who went on to pitch for Cal and appeared in the 1992 College World Series.

“We tend to hire Saint Louis graduates,” Medeiros said. “Now he’s going to have to deal with the jokes about being a Punahou guy. His father (Robert Konishi) was a Saint Louis graduate (class of 1953), so he does have the red and blue in his blood. When he told his father he got the job, it was a little emotional, a nice moment.”

The school may or may not go ahead with the original plans for a second associate AD.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Medeiros said.

Konishi is excited about the job.

“There’s a lot of positive things here at Saint Louis and I’m hoping to do a good job supporting the athletes, the coaches and the administrators,” he said. “I hope to continue the tradition and help continue the winning ways of the different programs and help the programs that don’t have the success and bring them up to that success level. I want to continue to develop young men, educating them through athletics and giving them opportunities to develop as a person.”