Jim Calhoun--Hall of Famer...and Bad Guy?

That's a question I have asked about the Connecticut coach more than once. His coaching credentials are outstanding with two national championships to his credit and a current #1 ranking. There are issues, however.

I first started wondering about Calhoun when he landed star recruit Rudy Gay from Baltimore, essentially buying influence with Gay's AAU coach by schedule an exhibition game between the Huskies and the totally outclassed AAU squad. There there was the way he lobbied, at times bullied, for point guard Marcus Williams to be reinstated to school and the team after legal problems dealing with the theft of laptop computers on the Storrs campus. He then stole recruit Doug Wiggins from St. John's, convincing Wiggins to renege on a verbal committment to the Johnnies.

Why does he often act like a bully in his press conferences and attack those who have the nerve to question anything he does? Because he can, I suppose, and there has been little resistance to it. There is now, though. Jeff Jacobs, a columnist for the Hartford Courant, took Calhoun on in a recent column, going into great detail that paints the coach in a very bad light.

http://www.courant.com/sports/hc-jeffcol0128.artjan31,0,5431437.column?page=2&coll=hc-utility-sports

After reading this and matching it up to my observations and suspicions, the answer to the question is yes, unfortunately, Calhoun appears to be a bad guy.