When Lew Perkins enters a room, heads usually turn because Perkins sticks out in a crowd like a sequoia in an apple orchard. Kansas University’s new athletic director is a big man with distinctive facial features. He is easily recognizable.

Don’t ask Perkins how big he is, though. He won’t tell you.

“That’s personal,” he said with a smile. “That’s between me and my wife. That’s also a benefit of being old.”

We do know Perkins is 58 years old, and we’re pretty sure he stands about 6-foot-7. His weight, however, is anybody’s guess. Let’s just say he is built more like an offensive lineman than a wide receiver.

Not that his size means anything. It’s his persona that counts, and, from all indications, Perkins is a man who attracts people like flowers lure bees.

You might suspect, for instance, the folks in Connecticut would harbor some resentment about Perkins leaving for Kansas after 13 years as the man in charge of UConn’s honored athletic program. Not everybody in Kansas felt cuddly about Roy Williams when he left after 15 years to go to North Carolina.

Yet, Connecticut responded to Perkins’ departure by treating him like a hero. Gov. John Rowland reacted to the uprooting by declaring June 25 as Lew Perkins Day in the state. Last time I looked, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius had not designated a Roy Williams Day. Moreover, UConn officials announced that two athletic scholarships — one for a male student-athlete, the other for a female — would be established in Perkins’ name.

“That caught me off guard,” Perkins said about the grant-in-aid honor. “Of all the things they could have done … that was better than giving me a plaque or a car. That made me feel good inside, because I love kids.”

Perkins said he planned to make annual contributions to those UConn grants and, he added: “Hopefully, I can go back and present the first ones.”

When Perkins and Gwen Flaum, his college sweetheart, were married after they graduated from Iowa University, they headed to foreign territory — the small town of Aiken, S.C., where Perkins had landed a job as basketball coach, tennis coach, athletic director, bus driver etc. of a fledgling junior college located in an old Southern mansion. Enrollment: 233.

“My wife washed the uniforms and she collected the money at games,” Perkins said. “One night she collected $17.50 and we took everybody out for pizza. That was probably against the rules, but …”

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Lew and Gwen Perkins stayed in Aiken for a dozen years, helping usher the school from juco to four-year status in 1977. They still have ties to South Carolina with their beach home in the Charleston area.

“I love the ocean,” said Perkins, smiling when someone pointed out he is a long way from sea spray in the Sunflower State.

Ask Perkins about his hobbies and he’ll tell you he has three. “Family, golf and the ocean,” he says. “And I enjoy traveling and I love to go to games.”

The Perkins are relatively new to grandparenthood. Amy, their oldest daughter, gave birth to a girl just 10 months ago. She and her husband live in Princeton, N.J. The Perkins’ other daughter, Holly, also married, lives in the New York City area, too.

Perkins and his wife lived on a golf course in a Hartford suburb, so it’s probably reasonable to expect they will seek a similar location in Lawrence. That decision, however, isn’t one of the tough ones Perkins said he will have to make as Kansas AD. He does not hold that hammer.

“I’ll let Gwen decide what we’ll do,” said Perkins, sounding very much like a man who has been married to the same woman for 35 years.

Gwen Perkins won’t be moving back here until early August because of job obligations in the Hartford area. In the meantime, Lew will have to make do with a two-bedroom apartment which probably could be a broom closet for as much time as he’ll be spending in it over the next three or four weeks.

Yes, Lew and Gwen Perkins have returned to Kansas for the first time since he left Wichita State in 1987 to become AD at Maryland.

“We’re back,” Perkins said, “and we’re serious about what we’re going to do.”