-> UConn’s obligation can be met with a donation to its preferred charity. Sullivan’s request — one UConn will honor, an athletic department spokesman said Tuesday — was for the $5,000 to be directed to the Husky Ticket Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that purchases tickets to UConn athletic events for underprivileged children.
Why? Because he wants more children to have the type of experience that defined his own childhood. Larry Sullivan, Matt Sullivan’s father, is the real Big Larry. A UConn graduate himself, Larry died of a heart attack while Matt was a junior in Storrs.
“He was a huge basketball guy,” said Sullivan, 46. “We’d go to games in old Fieldhouse. Then we got him tickets to the first game at Gampel against St. John’s [in 1990]. I’ve never seen my dad cry. But he almost cried, he was so happy. We would always watch games together and listen to [WTIC] 1080 on his radio, all the old broadcasters. And there used to a newspaper, Husky Blue and White. He’d subscribe. One of my favorites things is he would read it — on the hopper, like Elvis — and then give it to me and I’d get to read it.” <-