Russo, from carrying a mop to joining the UConn staff
Tim Russo has an awesome dream and he already has shown he is willing to mop gym floors and gather locker room towels to get there.
“Head coach of UCLA, that’s the big fantasy dream right there,” Russo said. “John Wooden. Santa Monica, California, one of my favorite places on earth. A complete dream for me. My dad is a big historian. He was very good with introducing the stories of Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton, John Wooden.”
Russo was traveling from Florida home to New Canaan on Friday. Saturday he will receive his bachelor’s degree in sports management from University of Tampa via virtual graduation. His father, the sports historian, is talk show legend Chris Russo.
Tim will be joining the UConn basketball staff later this spring as a graduate manager, so we may as well get this out of the way immediately. New UConn assistant coach Luke Murray’s dad is Bill Murray. Picture it. Mad Dog and Carl Spackler sitting together in the stands together at a UConn game in Gampel Pavilion. The Cauldron of Intensity could be more explosive than the ending of ‘Caddyshack.’
“Oh, my heavens,” Tim Russo said. “That’s going to be a lot of yelling, a lot of clapping and a lot of laughing.”
Russo played basketball at New Canaan High. He was a nice player. Coach Danny Melzer called him the “ultimate team guy, a student of the game, great with people.”
Any entitlement? “Not one bit,” Melzer said.
Tim said he also saw he didn’t have the skillset to play Division III college basketball.
“I figured I’d become the manager of the basketball team,” Russo said. “I knew I wanted to coach.”
He could have picked a big Division I program and been one of several managers. He thought Tampa, a Division II program, fit him better. The weather helped. So did some of that Russo pertinacity.
“I think I just wanted to see palm trees every day and absorb the sunshine year
round,” Russo said. “I fell in love with the city. I needed a place I could navigate myself and not get overwhelmed.
“Before my freshman year, I was very persistent. Reflecting, it’s fulfilling to look at how I went in cold turkey. I sent emails. I sent a cover letter. I sent a resume. I introduced myself to coach (Richard) Schmidt and coach (Pecka).”
Associate coach Justin Pecka told him when he finished enrollment to stop by the basketball office for a conversation. The persistent kid got the job. He started at the bottom. As a freshman he set up the gym with water, put the baskets down, mopped the floor, handed out towels and drinks. As a sophomore, he kept stats at practice, kept track of fouls in games.
His junior and senior year, he gravitated more to Synergy Sports Technology, a platform for on-demand, video-supported analytics.
“College teams and pros across America use it and I was able to dissect film, grab certain games for certain players, certain spots in games,” Russo said. “To go from mopping floors and distributing water to creating scouting reports and going through film on Synergy with coaches is such a jump.”
He got a bit of a taste of recruiting, too, reaching out to recruits and providing campus tours for them and their chaperones. He gave a prospectus on the school and fielded their questions. Could you imagine doing all that in a Mad Dog voice? Sorry. Tim has a milder cadence and tone, yet he’s just as dogged.
“I think I’m the only manager Tampa has had where I cut down on my own student Christmas break to be with the team on Dec. 26,” Russo said. “I wanted to be constant, always around the team.”
Russo entered the UConn sphere in elementary school. He attended the UConn basketball camps for threefour summers. He went with a few friends and the kids would stay in the dorms, eat in the cafeteria. He built a rapport with some counselors.
“When I was in the fifth grade, I was able to meet Jim Calhoun,” Russo said. “I guess that was the starting point of becoming a fan of the program and school. It’s one of the first colleges I ever stepped foot on. I was the little kid shooting around. My father was a big Calhoun fan. They’re pretty good buddies. That’s how I grew to love UConn.”
In his first and second years at the camp, Kemba Walker and Jeremy Lamb visited. He was able to get in line and shake Kemba’s hand. All the kids were stacking around Lamb, so he watched as he signed 50-60 pairs of shoes.
“Two of the biggest prospects in the country at that point,” Russo said. “It was mindboggling.”
He met Dan Hurley once as a college junior at Tampa.
Mat Johnson, who played four years at Tampa and graduated the spring before Russo arrived, has been a UConn graduate assistant for two years. Johnson also played at St. Anthony’s for Hurley’s dad Bob. Chris Russo, meanwhile, is good friends with UConn assistant coach Tom Moore.
With a game at South Florida, Johnson asked Pecka if the Huskies could use its gym. Tim mentioned it to his dad. Mad Dog spoke with Moore and he gave the green light for Tim to sit in on practice.
“I not only set up the gym” Russo said, “I got to talk with Tom Moore before practice, connected with Mat and got to observe. That was kind of when I deciphered the gap between Division II and I.”
Hurley approached him afterward.
“Hi, Timmy Russo,” Hurley said. “Good to see you. I know your dad is Mad Dog.”
Russo applied to two master’s programs at UConn, one in sports management, the other communications. He is leaning toward sports management.
“There is a thesis component with Capstone in the second year,” he said. “I think that fits. I think I would tie it with mental health and the connection to basketball, since I’ve kind of had to maneuver to get through some obstacles to get where I am today.”
Moore congratulated Russo upon his acceptance into UConn and they kept in touch. Pecka is close to Johnson, Russo is a natural fit for the UConn staff.
“Apparently there has been a lot of vouching for me,” Russo said. “I guess I was at the right place at the right time.”
Basketball is Tim’s passion and it would become a family one. He talked about how Mad Dog would get up at 6 a.m. on weekends and loved the trips to AAU tournaments in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. Chris missed precious New Canaan games when Tim and his younger brother Colin played.
“He was everything you would expect him to be,” Melzer said. “Our biggest fan. Very into it.”
So what does dad think of the new gig?
“That it is a tremendous opportunity,” Russo said. “Because of his relationship with Tom Moore, to have him as a mentor — he is by far one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met — and for him to be able to look after me is huge. With Mat, I have a couple of familiar faces, which is good. I’m a little nervous.”