Roy reflects on retirement
Coach, who took over Huskies’ program in 1985, set to step down
STORRS — Thirty-seven years into his UConn career and weeks from retirement, Greg Roy spends part of each day looking into the past. It’s not only that he’s feeling particularly emotional and nostalgic, but because can’t avoid the view.
When Roy, UConn’s director of cross country and track & field, peeks through the blinds of his office window and into Greer Fieldhouse, he sees current members of the Huskies track teams coming and going. He also sees basketball teams and baseball teams from another era — vivid memories from the chaos of a joint operation that was the foundation for an athletic department’s rise.
Back in the mid-tolate-1980s, before construction of Gampel Pavilion and countless “UConn 2000” initiatives changed the campus landscape, the teams of Geno Auriemma and Jim Calhoun would play and practice in the Fieldhouse.
Andy Baylock’s baseball team would be taking batting practice in cages beyond the bleachers. The track used by Roy’s team encased all this activity, a no-elbow-room training environment to bemoan then and look back fondly upon now.
“It was a zoo in here,” Roy said, laughing. “Our kids knew how to duck when somebody took a swing before they cut into lane one. Or maybe you’re coming down the straightway and a basketball would roll over the end court, hit the curtain, go out to lane one and ... smash!”
Of course, those other teams had to deal with the crackle of gunfire that signaled the start of running races.
“Dee Rowe used to say Kennedy would hit the gun and his guys would hit the deck,” said Roy, referring to a previous coach, Robert Kennedy. “It was insane. So to go from that to, you look at the athletic [facilities] now, it’s just light years. I’m more than proud. It’s been