According to a report from ESPN.com, Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun will be taking medical leave of absence from his coaching duties, acting on recommendation of his personal physician.  The medical reasons involved in this decision were not revealed (not that it’s any of our business), and it is for an indefinite amount of time.

Calhoun has taken similar steps in the past, specifically in January 2008 when he missed time due to issues related to stress, and then again later that year when he was treated for skin cancer.  In 2003, Calhoun was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and underwent surgery as a result, which also necessitated a medical leave of about a month.  According to the ESPN.com report above, Calhoun’s physician states that the current leave of absence is not related to any previous medical diagnosis — specifically, that there is no cancer- or cardiac-related reason for this decision.  That might sound comforting at first, but we hope nothing new has arisen.  As he has done before, associate coach George Blaney will assume the reins of government in Calhoun’s absence.

Obviously we’ll have more on this as events warrant.  Whatever the reasons are for this decision, we certainly hope coach Calhoun is OK and that he’ll be back soon.  We’re sure he will be, since it’s obvious he’s one tough customer.  It’s hard to imagine the game without him — a sentiment we’re sure his players are dealing with right now as they attempt to right their ship, with St. John’s coming to town tomorrow and Texas arriving on Saturday.

jstevrtc (547 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 4:27 pm by jstevrtc and is filed under medical matters. Tagged: connecticut, george blaney, jim calhoun, st johns, texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.