Calhoun, Reflective and Defiant, Looks Ahead
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
UConn Coach Jim Calhoun ended a personally difficult season by becoming the oldest coach to win the national basketball championship.
By MARK VIERA
Published: April 5, 2011
HOUSTON — Star-shaped pieces of confetti and a hint of uncertainty swirled around Jeff Hathaway, the Connecticut athletic director, early Tuesday as he watched the Huskies’ men’s basketball team cut down the nets at Reliant Stadium.
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“I don’t know whether it’s his last one or not,” said Hathaway, who did not address whether he would lobby Calhoun to return. “Certainly, right now, we’re celebrating the moment. He is what we all knew he was, a great basketball coach.”
Already a member of the Hall of Fame, Calhoun became one of only five coaches to win three or more national championships. He has said he would take some time off and then decide about whether he would come back.
It was a triumphant but trying year for Calhoun and UConn. Not only did Calhoun’s sister-in-law and college roommate die, but the program he built was hit with N.C.A.A. sanctions for recruiting violations. It ended with Calhoun standing atop a podium, looking out at the crowd, unable to stop smiling.
On Monday, Calhoun addressed his career reflectively in a filibusterlike postgame news conference, and he also spoke with a touch of defiance. For example, he referred to the major violations in his program only as “secondary offenses.”
“There was some people that felt it was a great time to take cheap shots,” Calhoun told reporters, adding that winning was a cure. “The sweetness of it; it’s very sweet. I have no business towards anybody. I don’t. You can write what you want; you can say what you want to see. I know who I am, where I’m going, what I’ve done.”
The team’s unexpected success — led by the transcendent star Kemba Walker and a core of young players — seemed to have a rejuvenating effect on Calhoun. Last season, Calhoun, who has battled cancer, missed seven games for unspecified health reasons.
“Very honestly, this group to me will always be incredibly special,” Calhoun said. “They’re all special in their own way. But I needed this team.”
The Huskies will bring back a talented cast assuming the freshman guards Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier and the sophomore center Alex Oriakhi do not leave for the N.B.A. draft. None of UConn’s three seniors were integral to the team’s title run.
But UConn does not seem as if it can rely on Walker’s return next season. Walker has not announced his decision yet, but he has said that he would leave for the N.B.A. if it was worthwhile financially; he could be a lottery pick.
Calhoun described Walker’s career with superlatives reserved for a group that includes the former Huskies superstars Ray Allen, Caron Butler and Emeka Okafor. All of them were selected in the top 10 of the N.B.A. draft.
Walker’s mother, Andrea, shared some insight into her son’s thinking amid the on-court celebration.
“He told me he’s not coming out until he has a ring,” Andrea Walker, wearing a UConn jersey, said while reporters started to cluster around her. “He said, ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s this year or next year.’ But he was going to fight to get a championship.” The question of whether Calhoun will return will surely loom the largest during the off-season.
“Simply, it’s going to be what I feel passionately,” Calhoun said. “Can I give the kids everything humanly possible that I can? If I can, I’ll coach as long as I can keep on doing it. If I decide that I don’t, then I’ll move on to something because I do have an incredible life with my family and friends and other things that I do.”
The decision to return would not make life easier. As a result of the N.C.A.A. investigation that found eight major violations — most from the recruitment of the prospect Nate Miles — Calhoun must serve a three-game suspension at the start of Big East play, and UConn has scholarship and recruiting restrictions and a three-year probation.
On Monday, Calhoun looked to his legacy, saying he once believed that others wrote it. Now he wondered if what has happened to his fellow coaches — referring to the Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, who has also been in trouble lately with the N.C.A.A. — changed his view.
Calhoun said he hoped to be remembered by the numbers, including his 855 wins, few sweeter than Monday’s. It put him in company with John Wooden, Adolph Rupp, Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight among coaches with three or more titles, setting off a celebration that the UConn men’s program had not had since 2004, when it won its last championship.
There will be time for basketball historians to recall Calhoun’s career. But first he has to decide on his future, and until he does, an air of uncertainty will hang over the newly crowned champions.
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