UConn coach Calhoun retiring

By The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — 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.

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 expected to be ineligible for next year’s NCAA and Big East tournaments because of poor academic performance.

In addition to his medical leave, he 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.

And then, 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 College 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.