Dom Amore: Jim Calhoun’s gym at St. Joe’s houses memories, but those he impacted do not forget; Chris Price’s Whalers book is out; Greater Hartford Twilight League honors its own ... and more for your Sunday Read

In hushed tones, emotional, John A. Cavolowsky, director of NASA’s Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program, told the story of his high basketball days far behind him, and a Celtics camp he attended. Sam Jones was talking at the end, bragging on a camper who was going to MIT, and Cavolowsky went up afterward to ask who that was.

He dreamed of going to MIT, too, and wanted to meet the other kid. “Sam Jones gave me a fatherly look and said, ‘I was talking about you son,” Cavalowsky said.

His coach at Massachusetts’ Dedham High had told Jones all about him, and though Cavalowsky didn’t know if his admission was a done deal, Jim Calhoun did. “I had no idea if I was good enough to make the grade or not, but he believed in me,” Cavalowski said. “And it filled me with confidence.”

You may not have heard of John Cavolowsky, but he was one of dozens of “Calhoun’s guys” who came to the University of Saint Joseph Thursday to speak as the school’s basketball arena was renamed “The James A. Calhoun Gymnasium.” Calhoun, 80, is in the Naismith Hall of Fame due to his 26 years at UConn, which included three national championships and a baker’s dozen of NBA lottery picks.

He began as a high school coach first at Old Lyme and then at Dedham, where at age 28 he took over a losing team in a hockey town and went 28-1, winning a state championship in 1971. But his influence reaches far beyond basketball.

“He just opened up our eyes to a whole different way to think about what we need to do to meet our dreams,” said Cavolowsky, who was with a group of his old teammates. “He was fabulous. He made it awfully clear to us what we needed to do to be successful, and to our credit, we bought in. We took it on faith that this 28-year-old guy, a kid basically, was going to be able to teach us things that we wouldn’t otherwise know.”

Then it was on to Northeastern, where Calhoun coached J. Keith Motley. Though Calhoun got him into coaching, Motley’s dream was to become a university president. “[Calhoun] was the only one who didn’t laugh when I said that,” said Motley, who went on to become chancellor at UMass Boston, the first African-American to serve in that role.

Then it was UConn and, finally, St. Joe’s, where he started up a men’s program and won a conference championship.

They told slightly different versions of the same story, a life story changed by Jim Calhoun’s coaching, cajoling, prodding, challenging. “I never let anyone I love cheat himself,” Calhoun said when it was his turn.

“The impact is just providing you the environment for success on a daily basis and nurturing that success,” said Emeka Okafor, 2004 national champ and later an NBA player. “His core values remain the same at whatever university he’s at. He’s all in wherever he’s at, and he’s loved everywhere, despite his tough reputation. He’s a teddy bear, man.”

Okafor still calls upon one of Calhoun’s favorite admonitions: “Anything great is done with enthusiasm.”

Donny Marshall recalled Calhoun’s recruiting trip to Federal Way, Wash., where other coaches showed up in limos or expensive rental cars. Calhoun arrived in a cab, stayed all day, and wanted to see all of the places Marshall hung out, telling his mother, “When he comes back here, he’ll be a man.”

Steve Pikiell, who played at UConn and has gone on to a long coaching career, making history these days at Rutgers, recalled the night Calhoun pulled him out of a game after a turnover four seconds in. But they still talk all the time, about coaching basketball, raising a family, you name it.

“In life there are very few people who are going to give you advice with no agenda and no strings attached,” Pikiell said. “For me, my father was like that, and my mom and after that, coach Calhoun. When you call Coach, you know he’s going to give you the best advice. And you learn the lessons you learned as a player that you didn’t quite understand. The gym is his church, it’s what he believes in and where he does his best work.”

Calhoun stepped aside as St. Joe’s coach last year, turning the program over to another of his guys, Glen Miller, and has since been working tirelessly to raise money for the school’s Legacy Fund. If all the former players who came to say ‘thank you had given a speech, the event would still be going on. Calhoun, surrounded by his grandchildren, never seemed prouder.

“The idea behind it is, at different points of my life, we all need people,” he said. “At different points in my life, I had people that helped me, that led me to believe I wasn’t going in the right direction. It was very important.”

‘Bleeding Green’ a fresh look at the Whalers ‘love story’

Eleven-year-old Chris Price had the posters in his room, delivered the stories to Farmington doorsteps on his Courant paper route. At 52, Price was a nervous wreck, making sure his recording tools were working when he got the call from Ron Francis. “He was everything you’d want a star to be,” Price said. “He checked all the boxes.”

Price, a web producer and writer with the Boston Globe, has written books on Cape Cod baseball and the Patriots, but his latest, “Bleeding Green: A History of the Hartford Whalers,” now available in stores and wherever you buy your books, was his ultimate passion project, a “love story,” he calls it. In 260-plus pages he brings the lore to life. Francis was one of nearly 100 interviews he did (full disclosure: I was one of them) over the course of six years.

“I was part of it, I was one of those kids for whom it was a formative experience at a young age,” Price said at a book-launch event in Hartford this week. “The sense of community that existed with this team in this area was unmatched. Every year, the Yard Goats have the [reunion] weekend and 30 guys come back for a franchise that doesn’t exist. I don’t think the California Golden Seals have that.”

Among Price’s takeaways: “The people of Connecticut were more Whalers fans than hockey fans. A lot of times these days, we root for the laundry. People in Connecticut rooted for the guys inside the jerseys. I didn’t know the depth of feeling people still had.”

If you’re old enough to remember the Whalers, or want to learn what your parents or older friends and relatives are talking about, this is a must read. Price’s next project is a documentary, to be aired on NHL network, on the Whalers’ franchise-changing trade of Francis, Nov. 4, 1991.

New Hall of Famers for Twilight League

The Greater Hartford Twilight League, home to area ballplayers and a proud institution since 1929, inducted 10 players and a manager into its Hall of Fame Saturday in Newington.

Brett Burnham, from South Windsor and UConn, who won the league’s Triple Crown in 2010, Jeff Johnson (Rockville, ECSU), who played 25 years in the league, and Todd Mercier (East Windsor, University of New Haven), who hit .464 one summer in the GHTBL.

Also inducted were Scott Cormier, Roberto Giansiracusa, Kevin Gieras, Brian Marshall, Jason Maule, Michael Schweighoffer, Jim Snediker and manager Thomas Abbruzzese.

Sunday short takes

* Simsbury’s Gavin Griffiths, a 6-foot-7 small forward and a four-star, top-50 prospect at Kingswood Oxford, committed to Rutgers to play for a Connecticut guy, Pikiell. Griffths is expected to sign his National Letter of Intent on Nov. 9.

* Jordan Hawkins was impressive beyond his numbers during UConn’s Blue-White scrimmage. Now completely healthy, he’s moving effortlessly, like an NBA player.

* Five homers one night, no-hit the next. As the man says, “That’s baseball, Suzyn.”

* Yale’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee completed its drive to get the school’s athletes registered to vote. Eligible voters on all 35 varsity teams, more than 700 athletes, are registered, the school said.

* UConn’s football season, which began on “Week Zero,” ends a week earlier than most, so its administrators will have a head start in lobbying bowl committees if the Huskies get to 6-6 and are eligible.

Last word

UHart, still nominally a Division I program, opens its men’s basketball season Tuesday against Sacred Heart. Awkwardness and bizarreness aside, the Hawks have 28 games scheduled against a wide variety of opponents as a mid-major independent, and seven scholarship players who, having been in coach John Gallagher’s system for a while, reportedly looked rather impressive in a closed scrimmage at Dartmouth.

Very sad news from the UConn athletic community. Ron DuBois , a Husky for more than four decades as a coach of golf and hockey and administrator, died at 88. DuBois, a decorated combat veteran, served 29 years in the military.

Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com