Lew Perkins has to be smiling.

Perkins, the son of Orthodox Jews from Chelsea, MA, is a 6-foot, 7-inch, bear of a man.

A former basketball star at the University of Iowa, Perkins has been athletic director of Wichita (Kansas) State, the University of Maryland, and the University of Connecticut over the past 30-plus years. For the past nine months, he has held down the same position at the University of Kansas.

Two of these four schools have played key roles in the current NCAA National Basketball Tournament, more commonly known as March Madness.

The Madness begins with the 64 best Division 1 men's basketball teams, and the 64 best women's basketball teams in America. In separate tournaments, they began play during the second week of March, in venues all over the country. The rule of the tournaments is simple: win or go home. After the first games, the field of 64 is cut to 32 and then 16. The next week the tournaments are down to their respective Sweet 16's, followed by the Elite 8's. And in the last week, the last surviving teams clash in what is called the Final Four.

On Monday, April 5, there were just two teams left in both tournaments. In the men's tournament, it was Georgia Tech and UConn. In the women's tournament, played the following night, it was to be UConn versus the University of Tennessee. No university ever played for both National Championships in the same year, and most certainly, no university has ever worn both the men's and women's crowns at the same time.

During his days as athletic director of Connecticut (1989-2003), Perkins guided the Huskies from two so-so programs to the elite of college basketball. He also ruled over successful men's and women's soccer programs, and changed the football program from a mediocre team of modest abilities into a team ready to take its place in Division 1A, this fall. Perkins builds sports dynasties.

Under his guidance, both Huskies' basketball teams have won the NCAA championship, the men twice (1999 and 2004) and the women three times (1995, 2002 and 2003). If the women win on April 6, it will be a three-peat; three years in a row.

Perkins also gets the credit for caressing, cajoling, and bullying the Connecticut State Legislature into building 40,000 seat football stadium at a cost of $90-million, not on the school's campus in Storrs, but 25-miles away, in East Hartford, at the junction of I-84 and I-91. A lesser man could not have sold the idea, much less have made it a reality.

Also, during his 13-year tenure in Storrs, he oversaw the building of Gample Pavilion, a 10,000-plus seat amphitheater for basketball, despite the fact that both teams divide their seasons between Gample and the Hartford Coliseum in downtown Hartford, just a few city blocks away from the state capitol. The Coliseum sits 16,000-plus, and both play every home game of their respective seasons to full houses.

Last June, he was lured to Kansas, once a great sports school that has fallen on hard times. He could have remained in Connecticut for as long as he wanted. But the call to build another national sports program was too much to ignore. Already, in his first year, the Jayhawks basketball team made the NCAA championships, won it's first three games and finally went down to elimination in the Elite 8. It is a good base to build on, and certainly to use to recruit some of the best athletes in the country.

It won't take long, perhaps three to five years, before Kansans learn to say Lou Perkins? Alavai!


There was another story about a basketball championship that was not only bad news, if true, it is totally offensive to Jews everywhere, and especially those Jews who lost family and loved ones in the Holocaust.

According to a story in another online Jewish news magazine, "Jewish News," ESPN, reported that proceedings have begun against two (former) members of a Lithuanian basketball team that beat a German team in 1941, and were rewarded with a prize of killing up to 10 Jews. The identity of the men, believed to be living in Connecticut, have not been divulged. But allegedly, the United States government is moving to have them deported back to Lithuania, if not as war criminals, then for lying on their entry questionnaires.

The article credits the Simon Wiesenthal Center for developing the information on the two men, and locating them in the United States. A Vilnius-based prosecutor, Rimvydas Valentukevicius, is also investigating the claims.


It is not common, but sometimes people do the right thing for the right reasons.

Officials at the University of Miami and the University of Louisville, have rescheduled their football game scheduled for Sept. 16, Erev Rosh Hashanah. The game has been moved to Thursday, Oct. 14.

The move followed complaints from fans and officials of both schools.

The move also necessitated that Miami move another home game, against Louisiana Tech, scheduled for Oct. 16, That game will be played on Sept. 18th, the second day of yom tov, although no time has been announced yet. It is not uncommon for schools in Florida to play their games at night because of the extreme summer heat.

Game conflicts in every sport exist because television time (translates into money) is dear, and schedulers refuse to recognize religious holidays. I also believe their callousness exist because few players of any religion are so religious that they refuse to play on those dates.

Some people may remember that Sandy Koufax, one of only two Jewish players in the Hall of Fame, refused to play a World Series game against the Minnesota Twins because it coincided with Yom Kippur. Two radio announcers for the Twin Cities team took him to task on the air, questioning his sense of priorities. A public outcry ensued and the two announcers were forced to make a public apology.

I am not moved by forced apologies.


In Jewish sports news from the athletic field in the past month, former Big East track champion Joe Mendel took 6th place in the 400-meter dash at the World Indoor Championships in Budapest in March. The 22-year-old Jersey native owns a personal best outdoor time of 45.94 seconds.