Former UConn Athletic Director Lew Perkins, who led football to Division I-A, dies at 78

Lew Perkins, who died at age 78 on Wednesday, came to UConn as athletic director in 1990 and departed for Kansas 13 years later.
In between, Connecticut’s state university saw its athletic department settle into a spot on the national stage. There were national titles in women’s and men’s basketball along with men’s soccer, and the school’s football program elevated to Division I-A as the state invested in a new stadium in East Hartford.
Perkins, who left UConn months before Rentschler Field opened, was the driving forced behind the growth.
There are few figures more towering in the history of UConn athletics.
Perkins’ family announced his death through a statement issued by Kansas. He died in Lawrence, Kansas after battling Parkinson’s Disease.
A native of Chelsea, Mass., Perkins played basketball at Iowa. His career as an athletic administrator began at South Carolina-Aiken and included stops at Penn, Wichita State and Maryland.
He left the AD job at Maryland for UConn in the 1990, just months after Jim Calhoun’s program completed its “Dream Season” and a year before Geno Auriemma’s team reached the Final Four for the first time.
While the basketball program blossomed through the 1990s under the roof of the new Gampel Pavilion, Perkins set his sights on football. He saw college athletics shifting and insisted UConn needed a seat at the Division I football table to stay viable.
In August 1991 Perkins recommended to the Board of Trustees that the school consider elevating to Division I. In March 1994 UConn was offered a spot in the Big East football league with a four-year window to study the feasibility of a move.
Eight months later, the Board of Trustees voted to upgrade the program. Randy Edsall was hired in December 1998 amid plans for the state to build a stadium in Hartford for the New England Patriots and the Division I UConn program.
The Patriots pulled out of the deal in April 1999 and the state shifted its focus to stadium in East Hartford, with lawmakers passing legislation to fund the project in May 2000. Rentschler Field opened in 2003 and UConn was playing big-time football.
"It was difficult. I don't want to sugarcoat it and say it wasn't difficult," Perkins told the Connecticut Post in 2010. "There were days, weeks and months where I felt like I was the Lone Ranger. There weren't a lot of people out there that were convinced this could happen. Not a lot of people had the vision that it could happen. People thought I was crazy. The media, too, there were a lot of people there that thought I was nuts."
Perkins was off to Kansas by the time Rentschler opened. He was Kansas AD until September 2010, his tenure ending the school conducted an internal investigation of the ticketing office. Probes by the IRS and FBI led to charges against school employees and a consultant who allegedly stole more than $2 million in tickets that were illegally resold.
Perkins had his own consulting business and lived for a time in New Orleans before returning to Kansas. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Trustees in 2005 and was on the NCAA Championships & Competition Cabinet and the NCAA Bowl Certification Committee.
Time magazine named Perkins as one of the top 35 sports executives in the world in 2008.
UConn’s rise to Division I football led to an appearance in the Fiesta Bowl after the 2010 season. Edsall left for Maryland and the program stumbled as conference realignment left UConn in the American Athletic Conference.
The school returned to the Big East while football embarked on an independent schedule. As the men’s basketball program secured an NCAA title this spring, the football program is coming off a bowl-eligible season under first-year coach Jim Mora.
And this summer, UConn is reportedly a target for the Big 12 conference — which includes Kansas.
Perkins legacy remains strong in Storrs.
"A lot of people thought I was off my rocker, they threw all kinds of rocks and daggers," Perkins to the CT Post in 2010. "There were days when I'd look around and think, `Why am I doing this?' …
"I was probably ahead of my time because I had predicted if you weren't in a BCS conference, you were going to be in trouble. That's why we needed to make that move, to protect our other programs."
UConn won six NCAA titles during Perkins' tenure (four in women's basketball and one each in men's basketball and men's soccer). UConn teams also won 60 Big East Conference championships under Perkins.
"On behalf of the University of Connecticut, I want to extend my sincere condolences to Lew's wife Gwen and the entire Perkins family," says current UConn AD David Benedict in a statement. "Lew was a dynamic leader and had a clear vision for just how successful UConn athletics could be on a national level. His legacy is still felt today at UConn in the across-the-board success that we enjoy in all our sports."