It depends on where you are coming from with how you will remember retiring UConn men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun.  Certainly, the folks at ESPN will remember him with admiration, if only because of the proximity of the Storrs campus in Connecticut to that of nearby Bristol, the home of the ESPN compound and its multiple broadcasting facilities.

No doubt, Calhoun turned a nothing basketball school into that of a national power that won three national championships and got him enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. Much like another hall-of-fame coach, John Thompson, did at Georgetown, Calhoun rode the wave of the growth of the Big East Conference and its explosion on the national consciousness thanks to its access to national television and major media markets.

There are those, though, including me, who can’t get past the mess that Calhoun is leaving at UConn.  Not only are the Huskies on NCAA probation for recruiting improprieties, they are banned from the NCAA Tournament this coming March because it graded below the academic qualifying line in the APR (Academic Progress Rate), meaning UConn basketball players were generally non-achievers when it came to work in the classroom.

Choose to remember Calhoun as you see fit. From where I sit, I will take it all into consideration – the good and the not so good -- and assess his tenure accordingly.