Just My Type
Jim Calhoun
CONNECTICUT COACH
The 68-year-old prostate- and skin-cancer survivor hasn't officially committed to returning after winning his third national championship.
Dan Patrick:Some people are saying you should retire while you're on top. What do you think?
Jim Calhoun: Are you trying to get rid of me? I promised my wife when I was 53, at 55 I'm going to get out of this. Every spring I contemplate, Is this a good time? I can do other things and want to do other things. But would the addiction to basketball be too much for me? Because I am a true junkie, and the addiction right now is great. It obviously would be for anybody coming off the season we had.
DP:So you are coming back?
JC: I plan to. I've got recruiting trips set up and I'm doing everything I would to come back.
DP:How do you replace Kemba Walker?
JC: You don't. Not when the guy had 965 points this season. When the guy's leadership was absolutely incredible. When you fall in love with him like a son because of the way he treats you and everyone around him. When he represents everything you want about college athletics. It's impossible to replace him. So we'll have to find other ways. I feel comfortable we'll have a good basketball team next year.
DP:Did people underestimate the players around Walker?
JC: People don't realize that there's no way Kemba Walker, as good as he is, can win a national championship [by himself]. He just can't. He was the leader. But Jeremy Lamb is a terrific player. Alex Oriakhi was just a monster. I've never been involved in anything like the 11-game run.
DP:What was more impressive: Winning the NCAA tournament or winning five games in five days in the Big East tournament?
JC: I don't know what was more impressive. I know what was harder: five games, five days.
DP:Did you know what you had in this team after losing four of five to end the regular season?
JC: We were losing a little bit of our confidence. Then going into the Big East tournament, for us to get a 26-point win over DePaul—real important. Then to beat Georgetown by 17—that was special. And then beating Pittsburgh ... Kemba's jump shot set up the rest of everything that happened.
DP:You have to sit out your first three Big East games next season. Is that a fair penalty?
JC: I haven't really discussed too much publicly about the NCAA. I volunteered to sit out games this year. I took full responsibility. Whether I agree or disagree with the NCAA is not important. I would like to have done it at the end of the season. I thought that would have been more fair. Why start it up next year? It's been 2½ years.
DP:What rules did you break?
JC: I gave out three unauthorized tickets to people who told me they weren't coaching AAU, and I made four impermissible calls. The overall charge was lack of compliance within the basketball program.
DP:Did all the discussion of the sanctions bother you during the title run?
JC: I know who I am. I've done this for 39 years. I know that I'm not warm and fuzzy to everybody. Nor do I really care. I care if you talk to my former players, if you talk to the people who really know me. Yes, we've made some mistakes in our program. And I'm responsible for anything that happens, whether I know or don't know.
• One and Done
Charl Schwartzel thinks "all you have to do is two-putt" is one of the dumbest statements in golf. "That's all you have to do?" said Schwartzel, 26, who needed to two-putt on the 18th green on Sunday to win the Masters. "You have a 14-foot putt, and the greens have been trampled on all day. You're standing over this putt thinking, How am I going to two-putt this? I actually thought, Why don't you just make it? That will make things a lot easier." Schwartzel sunk the putt to win by two strokes.
• Kid is all right
Rory McIlroy's Masters collapse was hard to watch (POINT AFTER, page 70), but CBS and GOLF MAGAZINE's David Feherty dined with his fellow Northern Irishman on Sunday and thinks the 21-year-old will be fine. "If you grew up where we grew up—I was the assistant pro at Holywood [Northern Ireland] 19 years before Rory was born there—you need a keen sense of the absurd," Feherty says. "[McIlroy] said if that's the worst day of his life, he's a whole lot luckier than most people."
• Line of the week
Jim Nantz of CBS, on calling the Masters since 1986:
"I broadcast this week from the heart, and that's the only way I know how to do it. If it's too sappy or syrupy, then I'm sorry if you just don't get it."
Now Hear This
Listen to the podcasts at danpatrick.com/interviews
1. Buck Showalter talks about the Orioles' surprising fast start.
2. Doug Collins weighs in on the 76ers' chances in the playoffs.
THE FINE PRINT: This may be a new Masters tradition. Before the final round CBS changed the name of Butler Cabin to UConn Cabin.
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MICHAEL J. LEBRECHT II/1DEUCE3 PHOTOGRAPHY (PATRICK)
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JOHN BIEVER (SCHWARTZEL)
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MICHAEL COHEN/GETTY IMAGES (NANTZ)
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DAMIAN STROHMEYER (CALHOUN)
