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Message: [QUOTE="CL82, post: 5122384, member: 44"] Except for one very narrow time span, there has typically been mutual respect and support between the two teams. More so than I think the fans, some of whom are oddly polarized about it, realize. When Jim Calhoun was sponsoring the "Calhoun Classic" golf tournament and semi annual alumni game, Svetlana Abromosiva called Calhoun to ask if it would be OK if she came and participated as well. His response was "of course, and anyone else who would like to come is more than welcome." For a few years at least, that reunion game became a reunion of both men's and women's players. Her phone call doesn't happen if she didn't have an pre-existing relationship with Coach Calhoun. Both Calhoun and Geno have big personalities which occasionally bumped up against one another. Calhoun has often said that the fact that they were at different stages in their life, meant that they "weren't friends" but that didn't mean that they were enemies either. One time when Jim Calhoun was asked "do you think that Geno could coach a men's team?" His response "I'd like to see it" drew laughs from the interviewer in the audience. In response to that, Jim looked out at the audience and earnestly said "No, I'm completely serious. I would like to see it. It wouldn't look like the women's team looks like, but (Geno) is really good and he would figure it out and be successful." He definitely has a lot of respect for all that Geno has achieved. [/QUOTE]