Men's Basketball Coach Jim Calhoun Treated For Skin Cancer

STORY LINKS

• Medical Summary (from UConn Health Center)

• Quotes

• Press Conference Video (registration required)

By PAT EATON-ROBB
Associated Press

STORRS, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said Friday he is being treated for a second bout of skin cancer but expects to be back on the bench this fall for his 23rd season with the Huskies.

"I want to coach basketball at UConn. I'm hopefully not going any place,'' Calhoun said. "At this moment I love what I'm do and feel very, very comfortable in doing that.''

The 66-year-old Hall of Fame coach said doctors determined last month that a lump in the upper right side of his neck near the jaw line was squamous cell cancer, a type of skin cancer. He had surgery on May 6 to remove the lump, several surrounding lymph nodes and part of his salivary gland. Subsequent tests revealed the all the cancer had been removed.

Calhoun was first treated for squamous cell cancer last year when doctors found it on his cheek. Doctors told him the recurrence this spring is related to his prior skin cancer but not related to the prostate cancer he was treated for in 2003.

His physician, Dr. Jeffrey Spiro, who attended a news conference with Calhoun on Friday, said he believes the coach is now cancer-free.

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common form of skin cancer, with over 250,000 new cases a year in the United States.

Calhoun is scheduled to undergo six weeks of radiation treatments next month at the UConn Health Center to minimize any chance of the cancer returning. His doctors told him there will be some short-term side effects from the radiation but expect Calhoun to return to his normal lifestyle, including coaching.

"I have one more step to go. I feel much, much better, thank God,'' Calhoun said.

In his tenure at UConn, Calhoun has turned a regional program into a perennial national powerhouse that includes two NCAA titles (1999, 2004).

He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005 and has amassed 774 wins in his 36-year coaching career. He finished with a 248-137 record in his 14 years at Northeastern and has a 526-200 record at UConn.

Calhoun's programs also have been a successful springboard to the NBA. There have been 21 former Huskies drafted under Calhoun; 14 of those were first-rounders. In 2006, UConn became the first school to have five players taken in the first two rounds of the NBA draft.

Press Conference Quotes

Jim Calhoun: I also want to let everyone else know, like everyone else, whether you're a basketball coach, newspaper writer or bus driver or whatever it may be that you should listen to your body. And that's the one thing I was. I was very persistent about that there was something wrong. I knew there was something wrong and for those that you love, those that you care about, I get check-ups every six months, eight months, whatever it may be and continue to do so.

And I just think, if anything, for me coming out publicly is the fact that I am not hiding from cancer. As a matter of fact, I am looking forward to ... on June 8 to have the Calhoun Bike Challenge again ... Bottom line is I'm looking to jumping on a bike, if you want to know how I feel.

I plan to coach here at UConn. I look forward to coaching for a long while. I will do like I always do and evaluate after every season, but I did really want to get the opportunity to let the public know that I have had a little bit of a setback. I'll fight through this and I certainly couldn't have done this without the help of UConn and particularly Dr. Spiro.

Dr. Jeffrey Spiro: The results of the surgery was that there was only the one mass that in the neck that we were aware of. That was completely removed. We removed three-dozen other lymph nodes in the process, all of which were negative. As a precaution, given what we found, we recommend that Coach undergo radiation therapy

To the best of my knowledge, Coach is cancer free now.

I expect, with the radiation treatment, that he will have some short-term side effects, but I want to stress that when all is said and done, I don't think that all this will have any significant long-term impact on his overall quality of life and certainly not on his ability to coach basketball here at the [University of Connecticut].