Jim Calhoun — a three-time national champion, three-time cancer survivor and renowned coach whose verve and talent turned a remote and tradition-starved program into a college basketball powerhouse — will retire Thursday as Connecticut's coach, according to multiple media reports.

An afternoon news conference is scheduled, and Kevin Ollie, Calhoun's assistant of two years, will replace him, according to reports. A Connecticut spokesman declined to comment.

Calhoun turned 70 in May, after having coached for 40 years, 26 at UConn, and his health concerns have become increasingly worrisome.

Back pain caused by spinal stenosis, which required surgery in February, led him to miss games last season, and last month he broke his hip falling off his bicycle. Already, Calhoun had beaten prostate cancer in 2003 and skin cancer twice, and he broke five ribs when he fell off his bike in 2009.

Calhoun, who has 873 victories, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.

After his first national championship in 1999, his program gained a reputation for producing NBA-caliber players. But his teams were sometimes as volatile as his own in-game antics or postgame comments: full of potential but unpredictable, yet sometimes resulting in something spectacular.

With more star recruits came scrutiny, and the NCAA punished Calhoun's program for the 2008 recruitment of Nate Miles. Calhoun was suspended for three games.

Due to poor academic standing, Connecticut is ineligible for next season's NCAA tournament.

Ollie, a two-time captain playing for Calhoun in the mid-1990s, will inherit a program that could face an identity crises and exodus now that Calhoun has left.