UConn kings finally learn to put their feuding aside

You wonder if they could make a float big enough for these two.

For years, Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma built basketball dynasties on opposite sides of a hall at Connecticut's Gampel Pavilion. And what teams they were; each just like the other with suffocating full-court defenses and ceaseless fast breaks to pound their opponents off the floor.

In fact, the men themselves were pretty much the same, both hot-blooded sons of poor immigrant families. Auriemma, the UConn women's coach, hailed from the gritty streets outside of Naples, Italy, and later Norristown, Pa. Calhoun, the men's coach, came from an Irish neighborhood in the working-class Boston suburb of Braintree.

And each took this raging passion to the basketball court, hollering at players, besieging referees and laying waste to the Big East Conference until they both stood at the top of their sports.

Yet that 5 feet of concrete between their doors might well have been the Pyrenees, because for years neither man made a move to step across the hall. While a state swooned twice for its basketball teams, the two men who made it happen barely spoke for much of the early 1990s.

As far as feuds go, this one was particularly delicious. Each seemed to take as great a delight in tweaking the other as he did in clipping down nets. Calhoun complained about the inequity of the fans' demands, constantly pointing out that Auriemma had a much easier time maintaining dominance in a sport where the gap between the top teams and everyone else was cavernous. He used to say his program was unfairly burdened by having to generate the revenue for both teams.

Auriemma responded by rolling his eyes, shaking his head and mumbling to confidants that Calhoun was insecure.

This was right about the time both teams hit No. 1 and a legion of new fans who acted as if they had just discovered basketball began to ask why the men and the women couldn't play each other in a game.

"The women could probably beat the men," was a common refrain from the women's fanbase.

Calhoun stewed. In an interview with The Dallas Morning News he said the women's fans looked as if they belonged in a "day care center or senior citizens home," because they were "over 60 and under 10."

By then, a private dislike had gone public. Suddenly everybody knew the state's two most popular men couldn't even stand to be in the same room.

It seemed they were alike, and yet they were also very different. Auriemma was slick, a smooth talker whose shirts never wrinkled and whose hair was always perfect. Calhoun was anything but smooth. His face grew whiter with every game, his hair thinned, his ties came undone. As easy as Auriemma glided through the halls, Calhoun rumbled, barking in a harsh Boston baroque.

But there was more. If Calhoun had an enemies list, Auriemma's friends were at the top. His primary antagonist was Memphis coach John Calipari, then at rival Massachusetts. Calhoun and Calipari clashed over recruiting tactics, players and a once-annual game that Calhoun killed in the early 1990s. It also didn't hurt that Calipari was one of Auriemma's closest confidants.

As the months went by, the Calhoun-Auriemma feud festered.

Then something amazing happened.

Calhoun walked across the hall.

He didn't stay for long. But it was a start. This was in 1995 as the UConn women — in the midst of a perfect season — were about to leave for the Final Four in what would become a national championship. Calhoun offered Auriemma some advice on handling the media crush that would be coming. By all accounts, it was a warm conversation, Auriemma listened, and he thanked Calhoun.

It wasn't much, but in that moment a hatchet was buried in the epicenter of New England basketball. Slowly a relationship bloomed. They spoke more. This past fall, Auriemma and Calhoun worked together on a cancer fundraiser.

Now they're both in the Final Four, the fourth time in six years that men's and women's teams from the same school have done so. On Monday, Calhoun may also be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. As soon as he is, it's hard not to assume Auriemma will be far behind. They have more than 1,150 wins between them. It only makes sense their busts would be interred in Springfield for all of eternity.

Come Tuesday there is a very good chance they will be having a parade in Storrs, Conn. Two sets of trophies and two sets of nets.

And high on a platform in Gampel Pavilion, the Kings of Connecticut basketball — once mortal enemies — will be standing, arms clasped, on the throne they built together.

Les Carpenter: 206-464-2280 or lcarpenter@seattletimes.com.