UConn Final Four fervor

On any other college campus, Chris Ambler probably wouldn't be a basketball fan. The biomedical engineering major strolls through the cafeteria here in a deerstalker-Sherlock Holmes hat. He uses his umbrella as a walking stick, thoughtfully pacing himself as though he were mulling over the clues left from a stolen plate of turkey tetrazzini.

The senior from Meriden is more gentleman than jock. But here at the University of Connecticut, where the men's and women's basketball programs make both frat parties and Shakespeare look like dull affairs, Mr. Ambler quite naturally describes himself as "a big fan."

While Ambler is turned off by the "theatrics and showboating" of the men's team (1999 NCAA champions), the "team play and strategy" of the women's squad (four championships in nine years) suit him perfectly.

From maintenance workers to English-department deconstructionists, most everyone on this campus and, indeed, in the state, is an ardent supporter of one of these two very different and dominant teams. Each will play this weekend in their league's Final Four tournament - only the fifth time one school has participated in both events.

The nearly universal UConn fandom here might best be explained by the two teams' unique nature. For those turned off by one team's bravado, the other squad offers the epitome of selflessness. The result is an intensity for basketball rarely seen outside of Bronx playgrounds and Indiana corn fields.

"There are no professional teams in the state of Connecticut, so basketball at the university has become a cult phenomenon," says Judy Preston, coordinator of student activities at UConn.

The icons of both teams are their coaches, Jim Calhoun and Gino Auriemma. As they walk across campus - a rolling landscape part filled with red-brick lecture halls and dorms, part covered by pasture held by the agriculture school - they give off the aura of Founding Fathers, like Adams and Madison striding through Colonial Philadelphia.

In a state where "shooting" traditionally meant sending a puck toward a hockey net, Mr. Calhoun turned an average men's program into a national powerhouse when he arrived 17 years ago. His teams have reached the tournament's "Sweet 16" 10 times the past 15 years.

In terms of putting shots in the basket, this year's group is more accurate with three-point shots than most people are with crumpled paper. Junior Emeka Okafor grabs rebounds and blocks shots like a man more accustomed to being off the ground than on it.

It is this raw athleticism and flashy play that seems to attract most fans.

"The fast pace and tough play is what I'm into," says sophomore Mike O'Shea, who camped out for seven hours in temperatures of 10 degrees below zero for tickets to a recent home game.

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