UConn's Calhoun set to step down

3 national titles captured with Huskies

9/13/2012
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jim Calhoun won 625 games in 26 seasons with Connecticut and 873 in his career. He is expected to announce his retirement today.
Jim Calhoun won 625 games in 26 seasons with Connecticut and 873 in his career. He is expected to announce his retirement today.

NEW YORK -- Connecticut men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun is retiring and plans to announce his decision today, a person familiar with the decision told the Associated Press. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made public.

JIM CALHOUN COACHING RECORD

        W  L  Pct

1972-73 Northeastern 19 7 .731

1973-74 Northeastern 12 11 .522

1974-75 Northeastern 12 12 .500

1975-76 Northeastern 12 13 .480

1976-77 Northeastern 12 14 .462

1977-78 Northeastern 14 12 .538

1978-79 Northeastern 13 13 .500

1979-80 Northeastern 19 8 .704

1980-81 Northeastern 24 6 .800

1981-82 Northeastern 23 7 .767

1982-83 Northeastern 13 15 .464

1983-84 Northeastern 27 5 .844

1984-85 Northeastern 22 9 .710

1985-86 Northeastern 26 5 .839

1986-87 Connecticut 9 19 .321

1987-88 Connecticut-y 20 14 .588

1988-89 Connecticut 18 13 .581

1989-90 Connecticut 31 6 .838

1990-91 Connecticut 20 11 .645

1991-92 Connecticut 20 10 .667

1992-93 Connecticut 15 13 .536

1993-94 Connecticut 29 5 .853

1994-95 Connecticut 28 5 .848

1995-96 Connecticut 30 2 .938

1996-97 Connecticut 18 15 .545

1997-98 Connecticut 32 5 .865

1998-99 Connecticut-x 34 2 .944

1999-00 Connecticut 25 10 .714

2000-01 Connecticut 20 12 .625

2001-02 Connecticut 27 7 .794

2002-03 Connecticut 23 10 .697

2003-04 Connecticut-x 33 6 .846

2004-05 Connecticut 23 8 .742

2005-06 Connecticut 30 4 .882

2006-07 Connecticut 17 14 .548

2007-08 Connecticut 24 9 .727

2008-09 Connecticut 31 5 .861

2009-10 Connecticut 18 16 .529

2010-11 Connecticut-x 32 9 .780

2011-12 Connecticut 18 13 .581

Northeastern Total 248 137 .644

Connecticut Total 625 243 .720

Overall Total 873 380 .697

x-NCAA champion

y-NIT champion

Assistant coach Kevin Ollie was expected to replace Calhoun, the person said.

Calhoun led the UConn program from obscurity to three national championships, but has struggled recently with health issues, including a fractured hip last month that has forced him to come to work on crutches.

The 70-year-old Calhoun won 873 games in 40 years as a head coach, first at Northeastern and the last 26 years at UConn, and put four teams in the Final Four, winning national titles in 1999, 2004, and 2011.

Calhoun, who was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005, is a three-time cancer survivor and missed eight games last season while suffering from a painful spinal condition. He returned just four days after having back surgery to coach the Huskies in their regular-season finale and the postseason.

UConn finished the year 20-14, losing to Iowa State in the first-round of the NCAA tournament. The Huskies are ineligible for next year's NCAA and Big East tournaments because of poor academic performance.

In addition to his medical leave, Calhoun served a three-game suspension at the start of the Big East season last winter for failing to maintain an atmosphere of compliance in his program, an issued that dated back to recruiting violations in 2008.

Last month, he underwent successful surgery to repair a left hip fracture from a bicycle accident. He was cycling near his summer home in Madison when he hit sand and fell, hours before he was to coach former players in a charity game.

Calhoun, a native of Braintree, Mass., played college basketball at American International in Springfield, where he was a team captain and leading scorer his junior and senior years.

After graduating in 1968, he began his head coaching career at Old Lyme High school, before moving back to Massachusetts where he coached at Westport High School and then Dedham High School. After leading Dedham to a 21-1 record in 1972, he was hired as coach at Northeastern.

Calhoun spent the next 14 years at the school, leading the team from a Division II program, to a mid-major D-I power with five appearances in the NCAA tournament.

Calhoun was hired by UConn in May 1986 and won an NIT title in his second season. His teams won 10 Big East regular-season championships and seven Big East Tournament titles over his tenure.

In 1999, he coached the Huskies to a 34-2 record and their first NCAA championship, a 77-74 upset over Duke. In 2004, the Huskies started and ended the season at No. 1, beating Georgia Tech in the NCAA championship game 82-73. The Huskies, led by Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon, won their six tournament games by an average of over 17 points.

In 2011, UConn finished the regular season in ninth place in the Big East before reeling off a remarkable 11-consecutive wins during the postseason, including a 53-41 victory over Butler in the national championship game.

Calhoun's only loss in the Final Four came in 2009 to Michigan State. The coach missed the Huskies' first NCAA tournament game after being hospitalized for dehydration.

It was one of several health issues that marked his tenure at UConn, where he missed 29 games, and left another 11 because of illness. He successfully battled prostate cancer in 2003 and skin cancer twice, most recently in 2008.

Calhoun took his latest medical leave on Feb. 3 and missed eight games because of the effects of spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spine, normally associated with aging and sometimes with arthritis. It began affecting him over the summer, but reached the point where he could no longer coach after the team lost at Georgetown on Feb. 1. He underwent surgery on Feb. 27.

He returned in time to coach UConn to a regular-season ending win in Pittsburgh and two victories in the conference tournament, before the Huskies lost in the Big East quarterfinals to Syracuse, and in the first-round of the NCAA tournament to Iowa State.

In May 2010, the program was cited by the NCAA for eight major rules violations. The allegations came at the end of a 15-month investigation into the recruiting of former player Nate Miles, who was expelled from UConn in October 2008 without ever playing a game for the Huskies.

Calhoun also faced criticism for his team's performance in the classroom. His team failed to qualify academically for the 2013 NCAA tournament under rules passed in the fall of 2011.