SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Jim Calhoun played his college ball in the 1960s across town from rival Springfield College, which then housed the fledgling basketball Hall of Fame, and would often visit the site hoping someday to meet those enshrined.
His career came full circle Friday when the two-time NCAA champion coach at Connecticut prepared to enter the Hall not as a guest but as a member of its class of 2005. He'll be joined by Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, coach and broadcaster Hubie Brown, Brazilian women's star Hortencia Marcari and Louisiana State coach Sue Gunter, who will be honored posthumously.
"To return to Springfield under these circumstances...it's overwhelming," said Calhoun, an all-star forward at American International College. "It made me for once in my life really look at the past. Clearly this is the highlight of my career."
Calhoun, 63, has remained true to his New England roots. The Braintree, Mass., native coached 14 years at Northeastern and, now in his 20th year at UConn, helped turn that popular regional program into a perennial powerhouse. Fellow New Englander and Boston Celtic great Bob Cousy will present Calhoun at his enshrinement Friday night.
"When I walk down with Cousy I'm walking in as the face of New England as the face of so many people who weren't fortunate enough to get into what I got into," Calhoun said.
He enters with fellow Big East coach Boeheim, whose career has followed a similar path. Boeheim, 60, grew up in Lyons, N.Y., about 40 miles from Syracuse, his alma mater. He co-captained the Orange with roommate and future hall-of-famer Dave Bing, who will present him. Teammates dubbed them the "odd couple."
"His side of the room was always neat," Boeheim said.
He led the Orange to the NCAA title in 2003 and is entering his 30th year on the bench at Syracuse. He and Calhoun have a combined 26 Big East regular season and tournament titles. Both enter this season with 703 wins, tied for sixth on the active career victory list.
Humbled and grateful for the honor, Boeheim expects life to change very little in the coming weeks and months.
"It's a tremendous honor but it's like anything you get in life. It really doesn't change the future," Boeheim said. "You still have to go out and recruit and try to do the best coaching job you can. There is no better honor but it's not going to help us beat anybody."
Gunter didn't make it to her induction. The 66-year-old LSU coach, a pioneer of the women's game, died last month from emphysema. She recorded 708 wins and was third-all time in women's NCAA history when she retired. She led LSU to 14 NCAA berths and a Final Four appearance. She had missed only one game in her career - for her mother's funeral - before suffering a severe emphysema attack on her way to a game in Jan. 2004.
Gunter has been enshrined in halls of fame in Louisiana and Missouri and, in 2000, the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. But this one was different, said Pokey Chatman, Gunter's former player, longtime assistant and eventual successor. Chatman was at Gunter's bedside when she learned of her election into the hall this past winter.
"She had that Coach Gunter gleam in her eye and that smirk in the right corner of her mouth. That wink said more to me than anything," Chatman said. "This is, in my opinion, the pinnacle. This represents that national championship that so eluded her as a coach."
Brown's NBA coaching career spanned nearly three decades, with stints in-between and after as a basketball broadcaster. Eight of his former NBA assistants have gone on to head coaching spots in the league. Brown, 71, who is being enshrined as a contributor, earned NBA coach of the honors twice, 26 years apart but each time for helping turn a young franchise - Atlanta and Memphis - into playoff contenders.
He said most gratifying was the ability to find success in different decades with the same basketball principles.
"No one is bigger than the team. You're going to be on time, you're going play hard, you're going to know your job and you're going to know when to pass and shoot," Brown said. "If you can't do those four things you're not getting time here and we don't care who you are."
Marcari, known worldwide simply as 'Hortencia,' dominated the international game during the 1990s. She led Brazil to the 1994 World Championship where she averaged 27.6 points a game. She said her biggest thrill was scoring the winning bucket to beat Australia and qualify Brazil for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.
She rose to fame in a country where soccer is king and basketball, at the time, an afterthought.
"It was very difficult because years ago basketball wasn't that strong," she said through interpreter Quevia Leiti.
The 45-year-old said she looks forward to returning to the hall someday with her two young sons.
"She knows her name will be here forever and she wants her kids to see how important their mother was in Brazil," Leiti said. "They never saw her play and so they will know."
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