UConn unveiled a statue honoring former men’s basketball coach and athletic department ambassador Dee Rowe outside of Gampel Pavilion on Monday.
Rowe coached the team from 1969-77, winning 56.9 percent of his games and leading the Huskies to the Sweet 16 in 1976. He went on to help create the UConn Foundation, and was instrumental in helping get Gampel built in 1990. He died in 2021 at the age of 91.
He also was part of search committees that hired legendary head coaches Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma.
Thrilled to unveil a new statue honoring UConn legend Dee Rowe 💙 pic.twitter.com/vxatSUsYcF
— UConn Huskies (@UConnHuskies) November 6, 2023
We forever remember and honor UConn legend Dee Rowe with a new statue in Gampel Pavilion 💙 pic.twitter.com/UnOWO7C9iz
— UConn Huskies (@UConnHuskies) November 8, 2023
“He just kept talking about ‘this is a special place,’” Auriemma told The Courant following Rowe’s death in 2021. “‘This is a special place.’ And I thought, man, it didn’t look so special when I walked around campus, but he convinced you it was. I remember going home and telling my wife, Kathy, ‘You’re not going to believe these people that I met on this interview.’ And she’s like, ‘Yeah, well tell me about it.’ I couldn’t stop talking about Dee.”
“From the day we talked down by the churches on campus and he told me I needed to accept the job,” Calhoun told The Courant in 2021. “He never told me anything but the truth, what I could do. And there was never a hint of ego in it about him. He was always my greatest booster, PR man. He was confidant, mentor, consultant. He just meant so much to so many people.””
The statue was placed at an entrance to the building.