“Come in here!” he shouted to his wife. “Looks like we’re going to get this one!”
The two cheered with every update, until the final score popped up: a 65-62 Penn State win.
NU’s last-minute loss was more painful for Don Perrelli than it was for any of the 1,051 supporters actually in Welsh-Ryan Arena that afternoon.
The reason? Perrelli used to coach the team.
June Olkowski’s predecessor at NU has been intently following the Wildcats – and their 0-15 Big Ten season – from a computer in Hillsboro Beach, Fla.
“I cheer here in my condo and try to be excited, but when there’s a five-minute delay of getting the score, it’s pretty difficult,” Perrelli said. “You see they’re up and then they’ve lost, and you can only go, ‘Oh, my God, what happened?'”
But the tradeoffs of leaving WNUR and Fox Sports Chicago broadcasting territory have been worth it.
After retiring two years ago with 247 victories and two Big Ten coach of the year awards in 15 seasons, the New Haven, Conn., native and his wife moved to a small town in Connecticut on the ocean. They then bought a winter home in Florida, a little piece of “paradise” with its own chip-and-putt par-three golf course.
Perrelli now spends his time golfing, going for walks, dining out – anything but pondering, say, whether to use the box-and-one or the triangle-and-two against Purdue.
“I’m not sure I really understood what (retirement) would be like after working for so many years,” he said. “The most difficult choice I had to make today was whether to have two cups of coffee in the morning or one. If I want to go play golf, I play golf. If I want to go sit by the ocean, I sit by the ocean.”
But Perrelli has had to make one difficult choice in retirement: avoiding contact with his former players.
After retiring at the end of the 1998-99 season, Perrelli still counts three-quarters of the current squad among his former players and recruits.
While he hates the thought of appearing disinterested, he worries that any correspondence with them may be seen as encroaching on Olkowski’s territory.
After all, it wouldn’t be easy for Perrelli and his former players to have a casual catch-up chat without the conversation turning to hoops. Or, more specifically, to the thought in the back of everyone’s mind – the likelihood that this team will become the first in NU women’s history to go winless in the Big Ten.
“They have a coach. Their coach is June,” Perrelli said. “Their focus has got to be on what June and her staff are telling them. I don’t want to call them and start talking basketball because I may be saying something that may be interfering. I am no longer involved, with the exception of being a fan and supporter.”
So Perrelli instead watched from afar as Dana Leonard contracted mononucleosis and Tami Sears fell victim to stress fractures and Nicole Daniels injured her foot. And he watched from afar as the Cats lost to Purdue by 65 and as they scored 10 in the first half against Wisconsin.
He rattles off the team’s misfortunes this season as knowledgeably as if he were still at the helm – only now he can’t offer a shoulder to cry on.
Perrelli knows that many of the team’s struggles can be chalked up to injuries, so he is confident his successor can drag the program out of the Big Ten basement.
He just hopes that fans exercise patience during what he considers to be a five-year transition period – at the end of which even the recruits that never played under Perrelli will have graduated.
“What fans don’t understand is it takes a new coach a while to not only get a program in, but for the kids to have confidence in that program,” Perrelli said. “You’re not only making major changes, but you’re making major changes with players who are not even yours. They’re left to you by another person.”
In the meantime, Perrelli will continue to dart for the Internet every time the Cats are playing. And he hopes to catch a few games in person next season, possibly traveling to Evanston for the Roger White Invitational.
But until he can make a personal appearance, he hopes his former players understand why he has been silent for the last two years.
“I didn’t want to shy away from anyone, but this is a new coaching staff and I feel very strongly that they have to be given an opportunity to put their program in effect,” Perrelli said. “I hope they understand that I’m not not in touch with them for any particular reason. I just want them to know that I am following them, and that I wish them much success.”
