Dom Perno

As a player for Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut, Perno led his team to 49 consecutive wins and the New England Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament championship played at the Boston Garden. He was named to All-State in 1958-59 and considered attending Boston College and Fairfield University but committed to the University of Connecticut and coach Hugh Greer.

Perno was a guard for the Huskies from 1960 to 1964 when the university was a member in the Yankee Conference, in which Connecticut won multiple conference championships. On March 14, 1964, Connecticut upset Princeton and star forward Bill Bradley, 52-50, at Cameron Indoor Stadium in the Sweet 16 of the 1964 NCAA tournament. The victory was sealed when Perno stole the ball from Bradley with 19 seconds to play.

Following graduation, Perno coached at South Catholic High School in Hartford, Connecticut, and then at St. Paul Catholic High School in Bristol, Connecticut, where in addition to coaching boys basketball he was also the athletic director, dean of boys, and baseball coach. Jim Valvano convinced him to interview for the top assistant position at the University of Connecticut that Valvano was leaving for a head coaching job at Bucknell University. Perno took over for Valvano as top assistant to Donald ‘Dee’ Rowe, and after five years took over as the head coach. Perno was instrumental in elevating the Husky program with the inception of the Big East Conference in 1979.

Following Perno’s retirement from coaching he served as vice president for sales and marketing at the Dumont Group in Bristol, Connecticut, and as a color analyst for the Big East Network. In 1997, he accepted the associate athletic director position for development at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He retired in 2011.

Perno and his wife, Cindy, reside in Orange, Connecticut, and are the parents of Dom, Matt, and Holly Perno Smith and grandparents of Isabella, Phoebe, Nate, and JD.