So I've been on the Boneyard from the beginning. But as a Freshman there in 1964 my first UConn game featured Toby, Wes, et al vs AIC with a guy named Jim Calhoun. We won but Jim scored a lot of points.
Before all the recruiting magazines there was Street and Smiths Basketball guide to college basketball. They had a section where they rated the top 100 HS basketball players. There were always guys from Cross, Hillhouse, Hartford Public and Weaver. Back then one could only dream of getting a John Williamson or Calvin Murphy to UConn. In the early 70's I remember Earl Wilson was a great player-Arnold Dean called him Earl the Pearl like the NBA s Monroe. In 1974 our local paper Norwich Bulletin and a Guy I became friends with-Tim Tolokan-covered UConn bball and remember reading one day about Tony Hanson signing with UConn. That really started the new era of a national UConn-when the Big East was formed in 1978 and the top recruit Corny Thompson Tim wrote about UConn finally beating out big time school NC for him. About that time I became friendly thru Tim with the UConn Staff of Dom, Jimmy OBrian etc. A friend of mine at Pfizer-last name Miller, had a son who was a very good PG at Fitch that UConn recruited. A publication called Eastern Basketball came out and I became friendly wit Rita Napalitano there. They were a great source for recruiting in the early days, getting reports on players from scouts and guys like me. Later guys like Chris Smith and other nationally ranked players were picking UConn regularly. The first game at Gampel was vs St Johns and I was offered $100 for my ticked by a St Johns fan-NO Way did I sell it! Smutty helped win game #1 with I think 36 points. UConn at last was big time. No more did we have to beat PC with Soup Campbell in the ECACs to get to the dance. The Big East was Big Time
