Jim Calhoun was 100% correct ...

[Waquoit]

I remember pulling for Tom Penders at the time, an up and coming UCONN alum. My memory may be that bad but was he not in the final mix?

The Final 3 were JC, Mitch Buonaguro and Nick Macarchuk. Missed Yonick's post first pass.

 

[mauconnfan]

Bob Zuffelato. In addition to his many years with the NBA he also coached BC back in the 70's I believe.

Bingo thanks LI……...

 

[Danzz]

The final 3 candidates were Mitch Bonaguro, who was Rollie's top assistant at Nova when they won their NC in 86. Mitch had an outstanding 1st season at Fairfield, and his career plummeted shortly after that 87 season. The other candidate was Nick Macarchuk who was at Canasius
at that time. He was a Norwich native. He eventually moved on to Fordham where he had a long, but undistinguished career.
We made the right choice.

George Karl also applied and I was pulling for him to get the job. As you said, we made the right choice.

 

[SubbaBub]

There is football coach in town who sounds just like this...

I really hope this is the case. We won't know until he wins and doesn't move on to another job. We have yet to experience that in FB. RE constantly had one foot out the door.

I guess I don't see a successful Diaco hanging around the AAC.

 

[Pudge]

Quite frankly, I hope so, but the football coach has a ridiculous body of work to achieve before even coming close. Moreover, guess what if he has 10% of Calhoun's success he won't be here. Loyalty to the school probably allowed his success as with Geno. They stayed in one place and achieved great things.

I don't get the pessimism of some.

I understand why people would want to leave UConn/Storrs. But, it can't be coincidence that we have several coaches that stay 20+ years. Just as I don't believe it is coincidence that we win March Madness when we have had less than top 20 Regular Season production. It's what KO says ... its what we do!

 

[CallMeBruce]

I don't get the pessimism of some.

It's not pessimism. It's a frank appraisal of the landscape of college football. UConn isn't a destination job, or close to it, for any good coach. If Diaco has three strong years and puts us back on the map, there's almost no chance he sticks around longer than that. He has no ties to CT, UConn is in a third-rate league, and CT isn't exactly a football hotbed. And that's fine, as long as we continue to hire good coaches. Hathaway really screwed the pooch when he hired Pasqualoni, which may have cost us an ACC spot. Perhaps someday UConn will be a good enough job that someone will stick around for a while, but we're probably two or three good coaching hires away from even having that conversation.

 

[60'sfan]

I remember sitting behind the Northeastern bench in December 1985(I believe) for the Connecticut Mutual Classic and see THEIR coach work the officials, fight for every call and really get into his players -willing them to play better. Oh by the way we got beat badly by NU that day.

I looked over at my soon to be brother in law and said looking at Dom Perno" wish our coach was like that" .

Little did I know at the time that the NU Coach would become my Coach. And the rest is History !!!!

I was at that game too. It seems like we all were. It must have been a sell-out.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Hathaway really screwed the pooch when he hired Pasqualoni, which may have likely cost us an ACC spot.

ftfy

The Pasqualoni hire was the single most damaging move we made in the run-up to conference realignment. It basically shouted through a megaphone that we had no interest in becoming a big-time college football program.