"I'm looking at him like he's crazy": When UConn standout Donny Marshall was left flustered watching Jim Calhoun arriving in a "yellow cab" 

Former UConn coach Jim Calhoun turned the Huskies into one of the elite teams in the country, winning three national championships during his 26-year tenure. Before Dan Hurley carried on his winning legacy in Storrs, Calhoun was the top dog in men's college basketball.

Calhoun cut a niche for himself as one of the best recruiters in the country and during a segment in November 2020 of the "Like We Never Left" series, former UConn standout Donny Marshall told the incredible story of his unique recruitment by the former Huskies coach.

"For me, it was being raised by a single mother," Marshall said (0:15). "I played soccer as a kid, and I remember having 10 schools come into our little 700-square-foot apartment—each one of them with five coaches. I mean, Billy Tubbs, Lute Olson, all these big names came through, each with four or five assistants."

He recalled one story where he was left flustered seeing the coach arrive in a yellow cab unlike other recruiters.

"They’d pull up in rental cars—Cadillacs, anything you could imagine," Marshall added. "Then this coach from Connecticut shows up. He gets out of a yellow cab at about 9:30, maybe 10 o’clock in the morning. I remember looking at him like he was crazy—everyone else had an entourage, and he’s alone."

Donny Marshall played for Jim Calhoun between 1991 and 1995 and was a two-time All-Big East selection before being drafted No. 39 by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1995 NBA Draft. He was also named to the Huskies' All-Century team.

How Jim Calhoun convinced Donny Marshall to join UConn

Jim Calhoun used to travel the country and convince the best prospects to join the Huskies. During the "Like We Never Left" series, Donny Marshall revealed how Calhoun convinced his mother to let him join the UConn Huskies after traveling to Washington in 1990.

"We had to borrow a VCR from my aunt because we didn’t even own one," Marshall said. "He (Jim Calhoun) brought a VHS tape. We put the tape in and watched it. My mom made breakfast, lunch, and even dinner. He stayed the whole day.

"Around 10 or 10:30 that night, we called a cab and he left. Before he did, he told my mom, “He’s going to leave here a boy, but when I’m done with him, he’s going to be a man. And he’s going to remember this opportunity because he’s going to be a part of something special for the rest of his life."

With his stellar recruitment tactics, Jim Calhoun turned the Huskies into a winning machine after taking the coaching job in 1986. During his 26-year tenure at Connecticut, he won seven Big East Tournament titles and 17 regular-season conference championships, as well as three national championships and four Final Four appearances.