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HOUSTON — Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, three times a national champion now, can ride off into the sunset and never look back if he likes.
Will he, or won’t he? Even his wife is not sure.
“My gut feeling is that he’ll walk away — some day,” his wife, Pat, said with a chuckle, after UConn beat Butler, 53-41 in the NCAA championship game last night. “I never want Jim to retire, unless his wants to retire.
“He won’t make any decision now, I know that for sure.”
Pressed, she said: “I think it’s be a great exit plan, but it’s not my exit plan, so . . . ”
Pat Calhoun has been married to her basketball-lifer husband, a three-time cancer survivor, for 44 years. Her husband will turn 69 next month.
“Honestly, it’s been our life for so many years, and it’s been a good life,” she said.
Calhoun, who last season signed a five-year contract that runs through 2014, keeps saying he will not make a decision in the emotion of the moment. He has been year-to-year for at least five years now.
After the game, he said he would do the same thing he always does — go home, enjoy the title with his players, family and friends and go on his annual golf vacation in May when recruiting is done.
“Every season, I think I might have said this before, when the season came to a conclusion, especially over the past four, five, six, seven years, whatever it may be, I told my wife I would retire when I was 50,” Calhoun said. “I lied.
“But I was on a plane roughly 10 years ago with [legendary North Carolina coach] Dean Smith. Dean Smith said, ‘Don’t ever make a decision on your basketball future right after a season, no matter how great it was, and don’t ever make it after a disappointing season.’ ”
His family has been bracing for the news of Calhoun’s retirement, but even they can’t say what he will do.
“I would have said a year ago that this would be it, he’d walk off inm the sunset,” Calhoun’s son Jeff, said. “I can’t say I know that now. I think this team has reenergized him to a point where he loves this team, he loves coaching. He’s always loved coaching.
“I wouldn’t blame him if he walked. He’s always said he wouldn’t make that decision ’til later, but i know he’s also always talked about ‘That [winning a title] would be the perfect way to go.’
“But then again he’s a young 68. I don’t know. . . . I really don’t.”
Additional reporting by
Lenn Robbins