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Message: [QUOTE="Sphinx, post: 3580836, member: 4623"] Hugh Greer. To mention Fred Shabel in the same breath as Greer simply reflects an ignorance of the antecedents of UConn basketball. You had to be a teenager in the 50's, as I was, to appreciate what a statewide craze was UConn basketball, albeit simply a radio phenomenon, conveyed through the voice of George Ehrlich. Greer -- tall, stately, white-haired -- was a father figure to us all and every bit as renowned in the state as Calhoun came to be. It was a different time with different expectations but they were held with no less ferocity than today's. When UConn beat #4 Holy Cross at the Worcester Auditorium in 1954 -- and Greer and his team were featured in The Sporting News, the only national sports media outlet of the time -- there was no less the sense of having achieved national recognition than we felt in the Dream Season. When Greer died suddenly midway through the the 62-63 season, he had already recruited the entire team that Shabel took to the Elite Eight the next year (Kimball, Perno et al) and he had made the initial overture to Bialosuknia. Toby and Wes came to UConn because of Greer and the UConn-brand Greer had established, not because of Shabel. Shabel exploited his inheritance smartly to have two great seasons, but when Toby graduated, Shabel was done and he knew it. He quickly skipped out, leaving the hapless Burr Carlson with Bill Corley and a ragtag bunch of walk-on caliber players. The seed of UConn's success was sown in the late 40's and 50's, when Greer transformed the school's backwater aggie image to that a school with a basketball aura and a fanatical fan base that would follow it anywhere. That is the aura that lured Calhoun to UConn, and, for that matter, Dee Rowe -- another story worth telling. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach