![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/rowe1.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cI couldn\u2019t be more thrilled or more appreciative for the opportunity to represent our school,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cI\u2019m extremely grateful to President Herbst, to Warde, and of course, to Geno. It\u2019s wonderful that they made this happen. Ginny and I are very, very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
If anyone is owed a trip to the Olympics, however, it is Rowe, who was honored to be chosen as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic men\u2019s basketball team in 1980, but had his dream punctured when then-President Jimmy Carter declared a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games as a protest over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
It was a tremendous disappointment for Rowe, U.S. head coach Dave Gavitt and the team of college players who had gone through tough trials to be selected to defend the gold medal the Americans had won in 1976 under Dean Smith. Gavitt and Rowe, longtime friends, had worked together as head coach and assistant, respectively, for the U.S. National Team in 1975. After successful coaching stints at Dartmouth and Providence College, Gavitt, of course, would go on to be the founding father and first commissioner of the BIG EAST Conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had met Dave when he was 18 years old and playing at Dartmouth College in 1947,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cMy basketball coach at Middlebury was Tony Lupien. He went to Dartmouth to be Doggie Julian\u2019s assistant in basketball and head baseball coach. Dave pitched for him and played basketball and that\u2019s where I met him. I became athletic director and basketball coach at Worcester Academy after getting out of the army and Tony called me up and said, \u2018I\u2019d like Dave to have a job with you,\u2019 and we hired him. He was my assistant in basketball, the freshman baseball coach, the cross country coach, had dorm duty four nights a week, all for $3,000. He was like my son, or my younger brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few years later, a priest, Father St. George, who I had played with and we were close friends, came to see me and told me Joe Mullaney at Providence had just lost his assistant coach, who was going back to coach high school. I said, \u2018I got the kid right here. He\u2019s a diamond in the rough.\u2019 And Dave was on his way to Providence.\u201d<\/p>\n When Gavitt was selected to be the Olympic coach for the 1980 Games, he hardly hesitated before asking Rowe, who had retired as the head coach at UConn in 1977, to join his staff.<\/p>\n \u201cI was off-the-charts excited when he asked me to be his assistant on the Olympic team,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cIt was biggest thing there could be. I had been his assistant for the National Team and we had traveled overseas to Sweden, Russia, Greece, Yugoslavia … incredible.\u00a0 At one time I was a mentor for him and he became a mentor for me.\u201d<\/p>\n The announcement of the boycott brought disappointment, but no bitterness.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we found out we wouldn\u2019t be going, we of course were broken-hearted,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cBut it was our country making the decision and we would do whatever the country wants. We never were critical, because we knew it was something bigger than us. We were just coaches and players and this was a decision being made by the president and Congress. But naturally, we were terribly disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>