Commencement

192nd Commencement Exercises | Class of 2025
May 22 & 23, 2025

Jim Calhoun
Jim Calhoun

About the 192nd Commencement Speaker

Legendary coach and leader Jim Calhoun will be Suffield Academy’s 2025 Commencement speaker. One of the best-known and most successful college coaches in America, Calhoun took over a regional program and built it into a three-time NCAA champion and a perennial national power. His accomplishments brought Coach Calhoun basketball’s highest honor when he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.

In addition to this honor, his numerous awards include the prestigious John Wooden Legends of Coaching Award in 2005 and four-time selection as BIG EAST Coach of the Year.

After winning 248 games as head coach at Northeastern, Jim Calhoun was selected as UConn coach in 1986. He had 25-straight winning seasons and made UConn one of the nation’s elite college basketball programs. Coach Calhoun is exceptionally proud of the UConn players and coaches he helped develop. He had 27 players drafted by the NBA, including 18 first-round picks. 

Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Coach Calhoun is a graduate of Braintree High School and American International College in Springfield [1968]. He began his coaching career at Old Lyme, Connecticut High School and continued at Westport, Massachusetts  High and Dedham, Massachusetts High before becoming the head coach at Northeastern in 1972.

Jim Calhoun and his wife Pat live in Pomfret, Connecticut. They have two sons and six grandchildren. Coach Calhoun has long known of Suffield Academy and has always been complimentary to Head of School Charlie Cahn about Suffield’s overall quality and warmth.

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