If there’s no place like home, Kansas isn’t quite that place for Lew and Gwen Perkins … yet.
“It’s not home, but it’s familiar,” said Gwen Perkins, shortly after her husband was introduced as the 13th athletic director in Kansas University history Tuesday.
“We do feel good here in Kansas, it’s not an unknown place,” continued Gwen, who was born in Nebraska, but lived in Kansas when Lew was the AD at Wichita State from 1983 to ’87.
“That was a big deal, and I think that made it easier.”
Despite an emotional 24-hour transition — Gwen said the couple’s new KU family and friends “have been great” — Gwen could not deny the shock she felt after learning that Lew had been lured to Lawrence.
“In all honesty, there was no way I could have been prepared. But it was just time,” said Gwen, proudly displaying a new Jayhawk pin as she shook hands with several KU supporters after Tuesday’s news conference. “I didn’t know it yet, but he did.”
The move from the school in Storrs, Conn., back to the Sunflower State seemed to even have surprised Lew a bit.
“I wasn’t even thinking about it,” admitted Perkins, who saw his school earn six NCAA championships while he was the head of the Huskies. “But obviously, I had to investigate it. Everything that I found led me to believe this was the place where I wanted to be and my family wanted to be.
“My experience at Connecticut was probably 13 of the most wonderful years that I could ever have and I just hope the next 13 years that I spend here or whatever I spend — I don’t have a 13-year contract — but I hope they will be close to my experiences there.”
Another factor making the move easier on the Perkinses was the fact that both of their children — daughters Amy and Holly — are grown.
“The good thing is that my kids are married and grown up so we don’t have to worry about school,” Lew said. “The last move I made, my younger daughter did not talk to me for six months.”
Gwen joked that Holly, who graduated from UConn in 1996, might have been mute to her dad for closer to five years.
An even bigger adjustment for the Perkinses’ daughters and their parents’ new start in Kansas could be Amy having to warm up to a new team.
“They were WSU fans and they would always tease me about how snotty KU fans were,” said Kelly Watson — a 1999 Jayhawk alumna, who Amy used to baby-sit for in Wichita. “I told Gwen to tell Amy that she has to take back all those mean things.”
Gwen giggled at the stories of the Watsons’ — Kelly’s parents, Kurt and Sue, were the Perkins’ neighbors while in Wichita — and said she appreciated them attending Tuesday.
“After 13 years somewhere, you’ve made life-long friends that we made a real commitment to,” Gwen said. “It’s always hard to change. But you have to hope the friends you’ve made will remain.”
Gwen also didn’t completely rule out a second start at a home in the Sunflower State.
“You just never know. Things come full circle,” she said, with a smile.