Jim Calhoun, the Hall of Fame coach, may be making a return to college basketball in the state of Connecticut.
According to Dom Amore, the longtime UConn reporter for the Hartford Courant, Calhoun, 75, may be lured out of retirement to take over the Division III program at the University of St. Joseph’s in West Hartford.“I’ve got a couple of other things in the works, one involving basketball, which I’m intrigued by,” Calhoun said. “It’s coaching.”
But this appears to be serious. St. Joseph is starting a Division III men’s basketball program, to begin play in 2018, and posted an opening for a head coach in late June. Calhoun would only say that the school was local, but sources confirmed it is St. Joseph. A decision could come within a week.
Up until review in 2016, St. Joseph’s had been an-all female institution. The university will admit male students in the fall of 2018.
Calhoun has been linked to jobs since his departure from UConn. In 2014, days after Steve Donahue was relieved of his duties at Boston College, a report surfaced that Calhoun, a native of Braintree, Massachusetts, had an interest in the opening. He later dismissed that report, stating on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio, "“No, I’m not interested. ... I have not talked to the people at BC. BC has not talked to me. You could imagine that with all my Boston ties a lot of people have called me.”
Calhoun, who has not coached since 2012, won 873 in his career. His first head coaching job was at Northeastern before turning UConn into a national powerhouse, winning three national championships. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.
Since leaving Storrs, he has worked as an analyst for ESPN.
