So I submit it here, today.
We were lucky.
We were lucky that, for the last 26 years, Jim Calhoun, who retired Thursday as UConn men’s basketball coach, chose to make his coaching home in Storrs, where he built the program from relative obscurity in 1986 to a national powerhouse. Love his style or not, and many didn’t, he is the main reason why UConn won three NCAA titles, played in four Final Fours since 1999, and he helped make winter a season to look forward to in Connecticut.
We owe this to his fiery spirit, his passion for winning, his command and knowledge of the game. It should now be clear that, even when he was questioned by the media and fans for his coaching decisions – and in a place this small, every move you make as a high-profile coach is questioned – he knew what he was doing all along.
Just look at the way he retired – so late in the process that the university had no choice but to name his recommendation, Kevin Ollie, as the new head coach.
Having attended more than a hundred UConn basketball games since my freshman year there in 1990, I derived as much entertainment from watching Calhoun act on the sidelines as I did seeing his team play, perhaps even more so. On TV, I would have paid an extra fee to have a separate camera locked on him for the whole game, his body swaying, arms gesturing, having “conversations” with officials that were largely one-sided.
It is true that his courtside dialogue was often not PG-rated. From the second tier of the XL Center, as a season ticket holder I could hear him chew out one of his players after calling a timeout ten seconds into a game. The arena would turn library quiet, just to catch a few words of what he was saying. Though embarrassing for the player involved, the public criticism, which usually stemmed from playing lazily, usually worked.
His relationship with referees could best be described as tenuous. While most coaches stayed near their assigned spot in front of the bench during a game, he often wandered five feet onto the court. Calhoun stomped the floor if a player didn’t box out on a rebound or if he made an errant pass, and I saw the coach more than once put his dress shoe into the UConn Club sign on the bottom of the scorer’s table in a fit of fury over something that didn’t meet his expectations.
And of course, this is exactly what I liked about him, what many of us liked about him. His attitude.
After all, this was the guy who refused to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium one year, staying true to his Boston roots.
It’s this attitude and his passion that I’ll most miss, as I’m sure his players will. It’s this passion that propelled UConn from a promising basketball program in the late 80s to one that became a favorite, year after year, to win Big East championships. It’s this passion that made elite high school athletes perform so well at the collegiate level. As any coach knows, it takes more than mere talent to win games.
While Calhoun’s retirement was a national story – ESPN called on its team of basketball analysts on Thursday for commentary during their off-season – its statewide implications will be felt the most. For the last 20 years, the UConn men have been expected to win, and because of this, between 10,000 and 16,000 fans filled seats in Hartford and at Gampel Pavilion to witness this greatness. And hundreds of thousands more watched on television, often at the edge of our seats.
Jim Calhoun’s retirement was not unexpected – he did not commit to return as coach until the end of summer last year – but Thursday will go down as a sad day for Connecticut sports, on par with the announcement that the Whalers were leaving Hartford in 1997. When Geno Auriemma decides to retire, we will feel a similar void.
UConn basketball is arguably the closest thing we have to a men’s professional sport in our state. Whether you agreed with his antics or not, if you cared about Connecticut basketball for the last few decades, you are going to miss Jim Calhoun. I know I will.
David Polochanin of Marlborough is a teacher and freelance writer.
