Building on Iowa lessons
Kansas AD Lew Perkins played for the Hawkeyes under Ralph Miller
Scott Miller - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Sports
For Lew Perkins, everything can be traced back to basketball.
It was, after all, basketball that drove Perkins to flee his home in Chelsea, Mass., for the rolling hills of Iowa. A highly touted prep basketball player, Perkins chose to leave the comforts of the East Coast to play for legendary head coach Ralph Miller at Iowa.
Forty years ago in Iowa City, Perkins - a player on Hawkeye teams that had a combined 47-25 record (25-17 in the Big Ten) from 1964-1967 - received what he calls a "great education," both on and off the court.
Here, Perkins - the current athletics director at Kansas, whose 59-57 win over Davidson on Sunday pushed the Jayhawks into the Final Four - learned some of the most valuable lessons of his life.
And here, Perkins began to fall in love with college athletics.
But before the man they call "Sweet Lew" was able to become one of the most coveted athletics directors in the country, he had to fail.
After graduating from Iowa with a degree in recreation therapy in 1967, Perkins worked in the maximum-security ward of the state mental hospital in Norristown, Pa. And in Pennsylvania, the 2000 winner of the National Athletics Director of the Year award found his calling.
"That was a very, very difficult situation for me. It was really tough," Perkins says in his thick East Coast accent. "That was my background. And really, that's what I thought I was going to do the rest of my life. But once I got to the state mental hospital, and I worked in the maximum-security ward, I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."
Before landing the marquee job as Connecticut's athletics director in 1990, Perkins spent 10 years combined at the University of Pennsylvania (as an associate athletics director), Wichita State, and Maryland, building his reputation as and up-and-coming AD along the way.
At Connecticut, when he wasn't busy elevating the football team from Division 1-AA to Division 1-A, he spent time constructing six national-championship teams.
It was, after all, basketball that drove Perkins to flee his home in Chelsea, Mass., for the rolling hills of Iowa. A highly touted prep basketball player, Perkins chose to leave the comforts of the East Coast to play for legendary head coach Ralph Miller at Iowa.
Forty years ago in Iowa City, Perkins - a player on Hawkeye teams that had a combined 47-25 record (25-17 in the Big Ten) from 1964-1967 - received what he calls a "great education," both on and off the court.
Here, Perkins - the current athletics director at Kansas, whose 59-57 win over Davidson on Sunday pushed the Jayhawks into the Final Four - learned some of the most valuable lessons of his life.
And here, Perkins began to fall in love with college athletics.
But before the man they call "Sweet Lew" was able to become one of the most coveted athletics directors in the country, he had to fail.
After graduating from Iowa with a degree in recreation therapy in 1967, Perkins worked in the maximum-security ward of the state mental hospital in Norristown, Pa. And in Pennsylvania, the 2000 winner of the National Athletics Director of the Year award found his calling.
"That was a very, very difficult situation for me. It was really tough," Perkins says in his thick East Coast accent. "That was my background. And really, that's what I thought I was going to do the rest of my life. But once I got to the state mental hospital, and I worked in the maximum-security ward, I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."
Before landing the marquee job as Connecticut's athletics director in 1990, Perkins spent 10 years combined at the University of Pennsylvania (as an associate athletics director), Wichita State, and Maryland, building his reputation as and up-and-coming AD along the way.
At Connecticut, when he wasn't busy elevating the football team from Division 1-AA to Division 1-A, he spent time constructing six national-championship teams.
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