Steve Pikiell, the Rutgers men’s basketball head coach and a former UConn player and assistant, has announced that he’s battling cancer.
“A couple of months ago, after not feeling 100 percent, I visited a team of doctors at RWJBarnabas Health,” Pikiell wrote in a social media post. “After undergoing various tests, I received the difficult news that I have cancer.”
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Pikiell, 59, noted that he has undergone successful surgery, and his doctors have a “kick-ass game plan” to finish treatment. He said that he will still be involved with the Scarlet Knights team to the best of his ability, but will yield head coaching duties to assistant Brandin Knight when he’s not able to be at games and/or practices.
“Just as I ask my team to fight and embrace challenges head-on, I’m going to attack cancer the same way,” Pikiell said in his post. “With the support of my doctors, my family, and now Rutgers Nation, I am confident we will be victorious.”
Pikiell, a Bristol product, starred at St. Paul High before heading to UConn for Jim Calhoun’s first season at the helm. He was a role player on the 1988 NIT championship team, then a co-captain for the 1989-90 “Dream Season,” in which the Huskies advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history.
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After graduating in 1991, Pikiell joined Calhoun’s staff, beginning a long career on the sidelines that led to head coaching positions at Stony Brook (2005-2016) and Rutgers. He led the Scarlet Knights to their first NCAA Tournament berth in 30 years and first NCAA tourney victory in 38 years in 2021, then guided Rutgers to a second straight tourney berth in 2022.
Through it all, Pikiell has maintained ties to UConn, whether through donating to the construction of the Werth Family Champions Center or entertaining Jim Calhoun at Rutgers practices, as he did last year.
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This article originally published at Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell, ex-UConn player and coach, announces cancer diagnosis.
