Truth be told, you did not miss much in 2005 when Jim Calhoun rattled off his 10-minute induction speech at the National Basketball Hall of Fame, mostly a recounting of the people who helped him rise to the top of college basketball at the University of Connecticut.
Where we”™ve all missed out, however, is being a fly on the wall in the practices, pre-game talks and halftimes where Calhoun”™s record demonstrates he was among the most persuasive voices and incisive minds the game has ever seen.
Calhoun is retiring as coach of the UConn men”™s basketball team, after winning three NCAA titles while becoming a major ambassador in elevating UConn”™s profile and by extension that of Connecticut. As he hits retirement, Calhoun ranks 10th on the all-time list of NCAA Division I coaching victories.
At his Hall of Fame induction, Calhoun”™s summation of the game he devoted a lifetime to sums up how many of us would like to see our careers unfold.
“Basketball is a game that doesn”™t care what the color of your skin is; it doesn”™t care what language you speak or what religion you practice,” he said. “It doesn”™t care if you”™re big or small, fast or slow; it simply asks you to play to compete. To lose with dignity; to win with humility. To make your teammates look good and to respect your opponent. The game asks that you work to improve, that you put something into it and that you also give something back to it.”
UConn fans got a lot in return ”“ sideline theatrics by the gum-chomping Calhoun, NBA-caliber players, and big runs in the Big East and NCAA tournaments.
Calhoun grew up in Braintree, Mass. and was a star player for American International College in Springfield, Mass., where the Hall of Fame is located. Starting his coaching career at Old Lyme High School, he got his big break in 1971 in winning the head coaching job at Northeastern University in Boston.
UConn hired Calhoun in 1986. After beating the University of Massachusetts in the first game of the season, UConn lost its next game to Yale University en route to a 9-19 season featuring regular poundings by the beasts of the Big East.
By 1990, however, Calhoun was national coach of the year leading UConn to the “Elite Eight” of the NCAA tournament, featuring Tate George”™s memorable buzzer beater in the “Sweet 16” to down Clemson University, followed by a heartbreaking, one-point loss to Duke University.
For those of us in Connecticut in 1990 ”“ particularly those outside the orbit of New York City where greatness in all walks of life is taken for granted ”“ it took some getting used to, having any expectations of beating Duke, Syracuse University and the other perennial powers of the Big East and Atlantic Coast Conferences.
We were collectively rubbing our eyes as Ray Allen hit the last second shot to beat Allen Iverson”™s Georgetown Hoyas for the 1996 Big East Championship. There was the first national title in 1999, with Rip Hamilton leading UConn over Elton Brand”™s Duke team; the title team of 2004 with the Lady Huskies winning the same year; the six-overtime game against Syracuse University in 2009, with UConn running out of gas in the final period; and the five straight Big East tournament games UConn won to set up its 2011 championship run with Kemba Walker sinking shot after huge shot.
By then, we were used to it.
The extraordinary edge Calhoun demonstrated year in and year out was not so much his ability to land the nation”™s top recruits ”“ they routinely committed elsewhere, particularly in his early years leading the program ”“ but in coaching up talents passed up by the marquee schools of the Big East, ACC and top programs elsewhere, as well as international prospects, and fusing them into a team.
UConn was the consolation prize for Donyell Marshall, Calhoun”™s first McDonalds All American, who in 1991 shied away from Syracuse which at the time was under an NCAA investigation. A high school star in eastern Pennsylvania, Marshall became the keystone piece in the foundation Calhoun had built from the best in our own backyard, including Bridgeport”™s Chris Smith who remains UConn”™s all-time scoring leader, and Scott Burrell, who hailed from Hamden. Calhoun would round out the roster with glue guys from the West Coast in Donny Marshall and Kevin Ollie, Calhoun”™s handpicked replacement as head coach who now gets the chance to prove himself on a one-year contract.
That core”™s success would convince Ray Allen to enroll in 1993, and UConn became a fixture in March Madness. Calhoun would eventually tap into the New York City scene, landing Charlie Villanueva in 2003, considered a top 10 recruit, followed by Kemba Walker in 2008, among the top point guards in the nation.
In 2005, Calhoun was joined at the podium by another great New York City high school point guard, Bob Cousy. Like the Cooz, who lives today in Worcester, Mass., Calhoun considers himself a New England man through and through.
UConn today remains the top-ranked public university in New England in U.S. News and World Report”™s annual compilation. We will never know the degree to which Calhoun influenced the state”™s financial commitment to the university to enable that ranking.
All we know is that every March, the word “Connecticut” was being penned four, five, six times into brackets across the nation. If the state is quietly a home to a population of stellar talents from all walks of life, Calhoun made sure that for several weeks most every spring, the rest of the nation knew about it.
