There’s a drawer in Howie Dickenman’s office at Central Connecticut State University that holds a neat stack of old index cards. Each one is its own scribbled mess, covered in dates, names, phone numbers, addresses and short phrases that make little sense without context.
On one of them, there’s a list of schools, with “Wake Forest visit 11/16” and “school dismissed 3:20” scrawled on the back. Flip it over, and there’s a corresponding high school hopeful’s name. In this case, it’s Ray Allen.
There’s another card with the words “Dad in Dallas” and “sounded good on the phone, got some personality.” There are also SAT scores boxed in the margin. On the other side, the name is Kevin Ollie.
Deeper in the stack, there’s Ricky Moore, Kirk King, John Gwynn and more. Those cards are how Dickenman kept notes on the recruiting trail, from his days as an assistant at Canisius in the late 1970s through his time under Jim Calhoun at UConn. All together, the cards tell the story of how a gruff, old New Englander played a pivotal, yet widely unknown, role in making UConn basketball a national power.
1977-1986
The relationship between Dickenman and Calhoun began on the recruiting trail while Dickenman was at Canisius and Calhoun was the head coach at Northeastern. They were both accomplished players in their day: Dickenman was a 1,000-point scorer and 1,000 rebound center for Central Connecticut, while Calhoun was an all-New England standout at American International.
Dickenman recalled talks with the future Hall-of-Famer at the old Five-Star Basketball Camp. The two would sit next to each other on sideline folding chairs while they watched high schoolers showcase their talents.
“We were two New England guys,” he said. “He probably didn’t understand me and I know I didn’t understand him, but I pretended I knew what he was saying.”
For a while, jumbled conversation over the summers was the only connection between the pair. Dickenman eventually moved on to Connecticut, where he joined Dom Perno’s staff as an assistant in 1982, three years after the Big East formed.
Calhoun, meanwhile, was making a name for himself at Northeastern. After a run of near-.500 finishes in Boston, Calhoun and his Huskies reeled off a string of five 20-win seasons in six years, ending in five NCAA Tournament appearances. In 1985-86, Northeastern went 26-5, won the North Atlantic Conference and smacked Perno and UConn in Hartford, 90-73.
At the time, Calhoun was a hot name, often floated for high-major jobs. He flirted with Northwestern and even Boston College, before he ultimately landed in Storrs.
When he arrived, Calhoun hired a new staff, anchored by Dave Leitao, whom he brought from Northeastern. Dickenman was the only assistant under Perno to stay on.
At UConn, Dickenman was in charge of coaching the big men and took the lead on the bulk of the team’s recruiting.
His job was to sell recruits on a small-time program competing on the biggest stage. The university’s national perception was a far cry from what it is today, or even what it was in the early 1990s. The same year Dickenman came to Connecticut, incoming forward Tim Coles created a buzz on campus, not because he was a highly touted recruit, but because UConn managed to land him all the way from the far-off land of Baltimore, Maryland.
In Storrs, that was a feat unheard of.
And when Coles came to Connecticut, he had the pleasure of looking forward to practicing and playing games in a decrepit Fieldhouse that was too embarrassing to even show recruits.
Dickenman recalls one Saturday in his early years when the team was set to host a recruit from Youngstown, Ohio. That morning, 21 towels littered the Fieldhouse floor, catching the rainwater falling from the leaky roof, as the team held practice. When practice ended, assistant Billy Stuart went to pick up the recruit, and Dickenman’s message to him was simple: Keep him away from the Fieldhouse as long as possible so the gym could be cleaned up.
The recruit committed to Purdue a week later.
That’s the situation Dickenman walked into, and now he was tasked with convincing high school students to do the same.
1988-89
His first break, and the first big-time splash for UConn, came in 1988 when Bridgeport’s Chris Smith eschewed the temptations of more established programs to say home and play for the Huskies. Though Smith says he was “two seconds” away from committing to Syracuse instead, he decided on UConn, partly because he wanted his mother to be able to attend his games and partly because of how he was drawn to Dickenman and the rest of the coaching staff.
Dickenman was the one who was going to Smith’s games at Kolbe Cathedral in Bridgeport. He was the one who had built a relationship with the school principal, Mrs. Jacab, and made sure Smith was taking the right classes and staying on the right path.
When Smith came to UConn, he saw that same dedication.
“I loved coach Dickenman’s spirit,” said Smith. “You could hear him yelling on the other side of the court all the time. Just yelling all types of obscenities. Just his spirit alone wanted you to go out there ever day and play hard.”
Dickenman looks back on Smith’s commitment as a turning point in UConn history.
“It always helps when you have a national player,” he said. “He was a breakthrough for us because he had gone to the Nike camp and made a name for himself there.”
In 1989, the summer after Smith’s freshman year, Dickenman recalled a recruiting trip that sent him to Detroit. While he was waiting at baggage claim, an airport employee came by and saw the UConn logo on the coach’s shirt.
“UConn,” he yelled to Dickenman. “Home of Chris Smith.”
It was the first time Dickenman could remember the school being recognized beyond the northeast.
That same offseason proved to be one of the biggest in his UConn career. That summer, he made his way to an AAU tournament in Norfolk, Virginia, where a team from Los Angeles entered with a star point guard.
Dickenman was sold on Kevin Ollie almost immediately.
“We were looking for a penetrating point guard,” Dickenman said. “I remember he was just what we were hoping to find: a player that would go baseline to baseline.”
1989-90
When high school season started, Dickenman took three trips out to LA to watch Ollie play. Sometimes, that meant taking a cab to Crenshaw High School,
telling the driver to keep the car running, and staying in the parking lot until Ollie drove up and pulled into his reserved parking space. The two would talk for 10 or 15 minutes and Dickenman would head home.
Ollie finally committed during a visit to campus, becoming a rare cross-country recruit for UConn.
It was a huge get for the Huskies, but not even the biggest of that class.
The common perception is that McDonald’s All-Americans are told what they want to hear on the recruiting trail: You’re going to make millions.
You’re a lottery pick. Come here and we can get you to the NBA. But Dickenman didn’t do that when he recruited Donyell Marshall.
“He told me I needed to get stronger,” Marshall said. “Told me a lot of things I need to work on. Getting inside a little more. Stop settling for shots. And I needed to push myself a little more.”
It’s one of the many reasons Dickenman is remembered for being a master recruiter at UConn. And that recruiting reputation is one of the reasons ESPN’s Seth Greenberg said he was as responsible as anyone for UConn’s rise to prominence.
When guys like Smith, Ollie and Marshall came to UConn, it changed the way the staff went about its summers. It could keep the best players in-state. It could stretch all the way to the west coast. It could even chase All-Americans.
A couple years later, it meant that Dickenman could, on a whim, go visit a guard in Columbia, South Carolina.
1992
One September morning, Dickenman boarded a plane at Bradley Airport bound for Memphis with a plan to connect there to Baton Rouge. He was hoping to visit recruit Kirk King, but King only planned to be at school that day until noon.
Dickenman couldn’t afford a delay.
Naturally, the plane was stranded on the tarmac for three hours and he missed his opportunity. When Dickenman finally landed in Memphis, he called back to Storrs and requested a flight to Columbia instead.
He arrived the next morning and drove to Hillcrest High School.
“We spoke for half an hour,” Dickenman said. “It was eye-to-eye contact. We sat diagonally across and he didn’t take his eyes off of me and I didn’t take my eyes off of him. He was really paying attention.”
But this was Ray Allen. He was a big deal. He had already visited or arranged to visit Kentucky, Alabama and even East Carolina.
“With respect, do you really see yourself in a Pirate uniform?” Dickenman asked him. “He said no. So let’s set up a date where you can come visit the University of Connecticut.”
But to compete with the great basketball powers, the visit would need to go flawlessly. When Dickenman left Hillcrest, he called then-associate athletic director Jeff Hathaway and told him that the Huskies had a shot at Allen.
“But I think it’s important we have a new rug in the locker room,” Dickenman said.
The old one was worn and faded. They don’t have that at Kentucky.
As Dickenman tells it, Hathaway had the locker room re-carpeted, Allen committed and the locker room carpeting became known as the Ray Allen Rug.
1996-1999
Ricky Moore was a freshman in 1995-96, Allen’s final season. He was also the last big-time recruit that Dickenman brought in at UConn. When Moore signed with the Huskies, Dickenman’s message to Calhoun was simple:
“This kid’s gonna be special,” he said.
Early in his freshman year, the team was in the Great Alaska Shootout and playing down to the wire against Iowa. Moore was fouled with about 30 seconds to go and missed both free throws. The Huskies went on to lose the game.
“Jim turns to me on the bench,” Dickenman said, “and yells ‘special, huh? He’s gonna be special?’”
It was an early hiccup for Moore, who is now best remembered for locking down Trajan Langdon in the final seconds of the 1999 National Championship game in his senior year. Dickenman, who had by then taken the head coaching job at Central Connecticut, flew to Florida for the game. Once the final seconds ticked off the clock, he joined former coach Dee Rowe and waited outside the locker room for the team to come off the court.
“I call Ricky Moore over and I say, ‘Ricky, thanks for making me look good. I said you were going to be special. Tonight, like every night, you were special.’”
Beyond
Today we salute @CCSUBlueDevils coaching legend Howie Dickenman by flashing back to his 1st #NECMBB title in 2000. https://t.co/39bsgRvusy
— Northeast Conference (@NECsports) February 19, 2016
Dickenman left UConn following the 1995-96 season to coach the Blue Devils, who in ten Division I seasons had never finished above .500. It took Dickenman just two seasons to turn the program around, and in his third year, Central went 19-13 before bowing out in the Northeast Conference title game.
The next year, it was a 17-point win over Robert Morris that punched the Blue Devils’ first-ever ticket to the Big Dance. Central was handed a 15 seed in the 2000 NCAA Tournament and withstood 53 combined points from Marcus Fizer and Jamaal Tinsley to only fall by ten to Iowa State.
Dickenman has continued to stay in touch with the stars of that team, Rick Mickens and Victor Payne.
He also hasn’t forgotten his UConn connection. Dickenman calls Ollie and Marshall every year on their birthdays. He’s also good friends with Calhoun and women’s coach Geno Auriemma. He’s even the godfather of Auriemma’s son, Michael.
On Saturday, Dickenman will take to the sideline at Detrick Gym in New Britain for the final time. Sitting in last place in the NEC, the Blue Devils will not play in the conference tournament, so the regular season finale against Fairleigh Dickinson will be his last game.
What comes after that?
“I’m going to be like a doctor,” he said in his retirement press conference. “I’m going to be on call for Central Connecticut. So anytime they need me for something, all they have to do is call.”
Other than that, he has one more goal for next year, and it’s something no writer could have guessed.
“This is dead serious. This is what I would like to do: At holiday time, I would like to be a Santa Claus,” he said. “I guess you could say I’m a little bit unique.”
A little bit.
Great Read, Thanks