'ChangedUConnforever': Jim Calhoun, Randy Edsall on the legacy of the late Lew Perkins
Jul. 21—Campus is transformed. Some facilities opened as Perkins initiatives and during his tenure. Others came well after his departure for Kansas. New buildings are still erected regularly. All are them a testament to UConn's athletic prowess over the past four decades — and to Perkins' indefatigable ambition.
"There's no doubt that he thought we could be big-time, and he was right," said Calhoun, who coached UConn to three national championships during his 26-year run with the Huskies in 1986-2012. "He pushed for it. And he didn't want to hear, 'Well, that's the way we always did it.' He said, 'Yeah, that's why you can't beat the people you want to beat.' He wasn't a perfect person, like all of us, but he was a great person for UConn in my opinion because he made them and pushed them — dominated them, in some ways — to understand that you can do that, that you can be special. And it ended up being that way."
Perkins died Tuesday in Lawrence, Kansas. He was 78, survived by his wife, Gwen, and their daughters, Amy and Holly. Originally from Chelsea, Mass., Perkins was a force on the national college sports scene, the AD at Wichita State and Maryland before arriving at UConn, the AD at Kansas in 2003-10 before retiring.
He is one of the most influential public figures in Connecticut history for the way he drove UConn's brand and goals. A boisterous and decisive man, Perkins changed the trajectory of the university by pushing so hard for the Huskies' place in college football's highest level until legislation was passed to fund a stadium in East Hartford, Rentschler Field was built and the Huskies were kicking off on Saturdays in the old Big East.
"I love the man to death because he gave me an opportunity to be a head coach for the first time, but the things I remember most, he was a coaches and student-athlete AD," said Randy Edsall, hired by Perkins as UConn football coach in 1998. "He hired you — at least, me — to do a job, told me what the expectations were. You went out and did your job and he let you alone. If you needed something to get done, you told him and he was going to make sure you had the resources.
"He understood the big picture, and you could trust Lew. If Lew told you something, you knew it was true. He was never going to BS you and tell you what you wanted to hear. He was going to tell you what you needed to hear in order to do the job the best way possible. I haven't gotten that from other AD's I have worked for."
Perkins arrived at UConn just after the first surges of basketball momentum from the teams of Calhoun and Geno Auriemma. The men's program had just completed the 1989-90 "Dream Season." The women would reach the Final Four for the first time in 1991. Perkins changed fundraising and spending practices. He knew a higher profile and the highest expectations meant more aggressive approaches. He challenged a university, a community, and a state to think bigger.
"He was the guy who fought for the coaches and for the kids, and to make people understand that in order to have excellence, it's going to cost you, but that the rewards will far outweigh the cost," Calhoun said. "UConn is a different place today than it was when I came there, and when he came there and a lot of other people came there. Lew was a good accelerator of us finding out who we are ... a major university capable of winning national championships."
Perkins pushed UConn into a transition from FCS to BCS football at the turn of the century. He left for the job at Kansas before Rentschler Field opened in 2003, but the football program rocketed to the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day 2011, a rapid rise from the foundation he essentially provided.
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"He had some big hands," Edsall said. "I remember somebody who worked for him before told me, 'Randy, whatever happens, know this: if he starts wagging his finger at you, you know he's upset with you.' I was never one of those where he shook the finger or anything like that."
Perkins had been struggling with Parkinson's Disease. Edsall kept in touch with him over the years and last spoke to him around Thanksgiving.
"He was a good man," Edsall said. "He allowed you to do your job. He'd fight for you. I think his legacy at UConn is that he understood that football drives the bus. Even though you had success in men's basketball, women's basketball, he understood that it was about football if you were going to continue to elevate, even those other programs. That's why he made the decision he did to go with football. I think after he left, every other AD that's been there, didn't understand that football drives the bus. ... He saw something that could happen, he believed in it and he developed it. That was important. He made the right decision. Lew just understood the big picture. I think after that, people didn't understand the big picture, that football was where all the money was."
The original Big East began to disintegrate with the departures of Virginia Tech and Miami in 2004 and Boston College in 2005, all to the ACC. UConn joined the American Athletic Conference in 2012 when the old Big East disbanded.
"I'll tell you what," Edsall said. "If Lew Perkins was still there when some of that took place, UConn would have been in the ACC when B.C and those people went. Because he had a vision and he understood."
The Huskies won six national championships during Perkins' time at UConn — four in women's basketball, one in men's basketball, one in men's soccer — and 60 Big East championships.
"We didn't come in together," said Calhoun, who was raised in Braintree, Mass., and came to UConn from Northeastern in 1986. "Much different personalities in a lot of different ways. But we both had the same idea: You can be so much more than you ever thought. That's what Lew thought. Same when I got here and said you can captivate a state. We were very fortunate, both of us, that it came true. A Chelsea guy and a Boston guy."
Calhoun, 81, was familiar with Perkins decades before they ended up working together. Calhoun once scored 33 points in a game for Braintree High. He remembers Perkins' scoring 58 in a game for Chelsea High.
Perkins went on to play basketball at Iowa, graduating in 1967, then coached men's basketball at South Carolina-Aiken, where he was also the athletic director in 1969-79.
As an associate athletic director at Penn in the early-80's, Perkins recruited and interviewed Calhoun for the men's basketball coaching job. Calhoun turned it down, but they remained in touch. They eventually went on to become builders and pillars at UConn.
"We all have great wishes and dreams and desires," Calhoun said. "Lew didn't see UConn the way that a lot of people did at that time — people who love UConn, and I mean really love UConn. But Lew saw it different. He saw it not being a small, little state school. He saw it to be a school that could really do some things, and he was 100 percent right."
UConn is just over three months removed from its fifth men's basketball national championship. The women have won 11. Many other programs are thriving.
After a precipitous fall in recent years, the football program has renewed energy after a bowl appearance under Jim Mora. There is talk about UConn possibly joining the Big 12, should an invitation be extended — talk of UConn thinking big, in a way. Perkins always did.
Calhoun mentioned that to Gwen, Amy and Holly on Tuesday. He reminded them what campus used to look like, and updated them on what it looks like today. He urged them to visit. There are new facilities across the board. More being constructed.
"A great tribute to Lew himself," Calhoun said. "Go to campus. That's Lew's legacy. I don't mean building them. I mean creating an atmosphere where we thought we could be big-time. Lew did an incredible job of doing that, and that's his legacy at UConn."
