I had a chance to talk to UConn Athletic Director Jeff Hathaway this week.
It’s for a story on the school’s multi-media/marketing deal with IMG coming this Sunday but we also touched on a few other issues facing the Huskies.
Here’s a taste:
– Hathaway’s department is in the “planning process” for a basketball practice facility.
“We are just at the point where we’re beginning to get renderings and drawings back from the architect,” Hathaway said.
IMG will pay $2 million toward the project and the school’s deal with Nike includes $1 million for the building.
Hathaway says the Huskies are still in the “silent phase” of the fund-raising for a project that will cost in the neighborhood of $25 to $30 million.
The new building, obviously, will eventually be located on the site of the former (it’s still standing, though) Memorial Stadium.
“It has to be on that piece of land. It has to be next to Gampel and there’s no where else to go,” Hathaway said.
– Men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun is entering the final year of his contract and has wondered aloud (to other respected media outlets, at least) about how long it might take. He hopes it gets settled before the hoop season begins.
Hathaway says it’s going to happen.
“We’re not going to put any time frames on contracts,” Hathaway said. “Clearly Jim’s very important to the University of Connecticut. We got the last contract done and we’ll get this one done.”
– As for the NCAA’s investigation/review, Hathaway was expectedly mum.
“I can’t comment on that. It wouldn’t be fair to comment on it,” Hathaway said.
– Hathaway says he’s happy with the Big East’s deal with the Champs Sports Bowl.
“I think the Champs Bowl is a very good bowl for us,” Hathaway said. “I think Orlando’s a great destination. Students will go, families will go, fans will go. Retirees that are from Connecticut who live in Florida will go.
“Great destination. Great media market. It’s a win-win for us.”
– And now for the fun one: the Notre Dame series.
As we (and others) have said, it’s not dead. It’s just sort of dying on the vine.
“The series is not dead. I would not say dead,” Hathaway said. “I would say we had a chance to pursue a couple opportunities to bring top-flight non-conference teams (Michigan, Tennessee) to our fans at Rentschler Field. And we did that.
“I think conversations with Notre Dame will continue and we’ll see where they go.”
The likelihood of UConn agreeing to play the Irish in Jersey or Foxboro is not good. The likelihood of Notre Dame agreeing to play the Huskies in East Hartford is not good.
The two teams will play this year and that might be it.
How the proposed deal fell through isn’t completely clear, but Hathaway did offer some clues.
“They have a new athletic director (Jack Swarbrick). Their prior athletic director (Kevin White) was a very valued colleague,” Hathaway said. “He had situations, guidelines that were important to him. We wanted to get Notre Dame on the schedule. We wanted to play them, we wanted to take advantage of the television exposure.
“For whatever reasons, we got to a point where they were going through the transition and they wanted to get their new athletic director on board and give him the chance to evaluate their scheduling philosophies, what was on the books and what was tentative. And Jack’s been on board now for a year and he’s had a chance to evaluate that.
“I hope I have a feel about what’s important to the University of Connecticut and I have a feel about what’s important to Randy (Edsall) and me as we schedule.
“We’ll continue those conversations and we’ll see what comes of it.”
OK, enough chatter. Long day for me and it’s not over.
Don’t make me go all Robert Frost/Sponge on you.
- Neill
