It is understandable if, as a casual sports fan, you see Geno Auriemma on TV during a UConn women’s basketball game and think to yourself, “Man, that guy does not look like a good time.”
Auriemma is an iconic figure not just in women’s hoops but all of sports, stalking the sideline with a permanent scowl, famous for sniping at officials and grumbling to reporters about his team’s shortcomings. He hollers at his players so much, it’s a wonder he has any voice left for postgame interviews. He’s so grouchy that a few years ago, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi, two of the best to ever play for him, famously compared him to Ed Asner, the curmudgeonly character from “Up,” the movie.
Perhaps more famously, no one disputed the comparison (the physical resemblance is striking).
But his sideline antics, and the criticism that sometimes follow them, often overshadows the simplest truth about Auriemma: The man knows how to win. And the people who know him best say the first impression he makes — often on TV, and typically in a heated moment — doesn’t come close to telling the full story of who he is, or his success.
Auriemma added to an already sparkling resume Wednesday night when, with an 85-41 victory over Fairleigh Dickinson at home in Gampel Pavilion, he became the NCAA all-time wins leader in college basketball, surpassing former Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, who hit that milestone in January 2024 before retiring at the end of last season. Auriemma is one of four coaches (VanDerveer, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and the late Pat Summitt of Tennessee) to have compiled 1,000 Division-I wins.
“The thing that has always stuck out to me is this ability to not get complacent, to not get bored,” Bird told USA TODAY Sports. “To try to constantly achieve this level of perfection at every practice, every game — when you look back at 40 years of that, it’s pretty incredible to never have slippage, to never have a bad day in terms of your standards, especially when human nature is to get more relaxed.”
But for all his accomplishments — 11 national championships, 23 Final Fours, six perfect seasons — Auriemma’s greatest achievement, according to those closest to him, is his ability to make others feel like they are “the most important person in the world.”
Napheesa Collier, a two-time All-American who played for Auriemma at Connecticut from 2015-2019, said that’s true even when he’s screaming because you screwed up a play, forgot to block out, took a terrible shot, etc.
“What doesn’t get talked about enough is his connection with the players,” Collier said. “It’s such a unique and uncommon gift — you have his full focus when he’s talking, and it makes you feel special.”
And yes, she joked, when Auriemma is in your face, you are wishing at that moment that he didn’t think you were quite so special.
The victory Wednesday gave the 70-year-old Hall of Famer 1,217 wins — all at UConn — a staggering triumph for an Italian immigrant who never played college basketball himself.
What’s more, he will continue to add to that number, as the No. 2-ranked Huskies are again favored to compete for the national title this season. And given how rare Auriemma’s longevity is in college sports these days, it is likely that no one will ever top his record.
“It’s hard enough to find one person dumb enough to do this for 40 years, let alone two people,” quipped UNC coach Courtney Banghart on Friday, Nov. 15 after her team became win No. 1,216 with UConn’s 69-58 victory over the No. 15 Tar Heels.
And no, Banghart said, she will not be trying to follow in his footsteps. Because even getting close to Auriemma’s coaching resume will be near impossible for everyone.
Far easier, his players say, is getting close to Auriemma as a person.
An ‘unmatched’ ability to push players
Auriemma’s players, dozens of whom earned All-American status while in college, are most impressed by the way he builds and maintains rapport with those who play and work for him. Consider that Chris Dailey, his associate head coach, has been on his staff for each of his 40 seasons in Storrs, Connecticut. If Auriemma is the best coach ever, Taurasi said on a recent episode of the ‘Locked on Women’s Basketball’ podcast, then ‘CD,’ as she’s known to insiders, is a close second.
Wednesday night, more than 60 former players and coaches were expected in Gampel for a celebration of Auriemma and Dailey that will double as a Husky reunion. It’ll be a who’s who of women’s basketball dignitaries, including many of the players he’s screamed at over the years. Often, they’re the ones most eager to come back.
“I definitely don’t think the general public realizes how good of relationships he has with his players,” said Jennifer Rizzotti, who played for Auriemma from 1992-96 and was the point guard on UConn’s first title team. She is now the president of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, and the selection committee chair for Team USA. “People see his passion on the sideline or the sarcastic quips he makes in a press conference but they don’t bother to learn how much equity he puts into his players.
“When he’s on you, you know how invested he is in you. The worst punishment was never being yelled at — it was him not coaching us, not talking to us, not giving us attention … he has a reputation of pushing players to be their best, pushing them to their breaking point, and they still want to go there.”
Maya Moore-Irons, a three-time national player of the year, echoed those thoughts.
‘He’s so much more than the moments that gets people’s attention. Yes, he’s from Philly and he’s Italian, so he’s gonna tell it like it is. His style and personality isn’t always gonna rub people the right way. But his heart for us is genuine,” Moore-Irons said.
Then she laughed. “We never had a dull moment, that’s for sure. You can’t say we were ever bored at practice.”
For years, many of the top high school prospects across America have picked UConn, anxious to add their name to scores of others who led the Huskies to 11 national titles. From the outside, some might wonder if Auriemma gets bored of winning so often, and often by so much.
But that’s not the case, said longtime UConn assistant Marisa Moseley.
“It’s not the notoriety or accomplishments driving him,” said Moseley, who spent nine years on the Husky bench and is now in her fourth season as Wisconsin’s head coach. “He does it because every time somebody gets to experience something he already has — a Final Four, a national championship — it changes the trajectory of their lives, and he wants that for them.”
ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo, who led UConn to its first national title and calls many of the Huskies’ biggest games, agreed.
Asked what the general public might not know or appreciate about Auriemma, Lobo laughed and said she suspected outsiders are unaware of how all this attention is undoubtedly making Auriemma extraordinarily uncomfortable. In his program, it’s never about individuals. Auriemma’s emphasis on the team, and his insistence that players celebrate each other and not themselves, has been a hallmark since he took over at UConn in 1985.
‘Wherever we went, we tried to help grow the game’
Over the last month, Auriemma has been asked about the impending record by nearly everyone he’s encountered. Each time, he’s sidestepped compliments, instead choosing to praise his players and assistants.
But Friday night after the win over UNC, he reflected on the unprecedented moment women’s basketball is experiencing, from record crowds and TV ratings to players so popular, they’ve become part of the every day sports lexicon. Perhaps most telling is the explosion in parity across the game. Since UConn’s last title in 2016 — its fourth in four years — five different teams have hung banners. Banghart said Auriemma should “take pride in the fact that it’s not a two-horse race anymore. There are a lot of teams that can win the national championship right now, and him and Tara (VanDerveer) are a huge part of that. They made people want to get into coaching, made young women want to pick basketball.”
The arc of his success, and how it parallels the sport he loves, is as surprising to Auriemma as anyone else.
“Over the years, we created an environment where athletic directors, university presidents, were able to look at what we did and what we were doing and ask their coaches and their administration, ‘Well, why can’t we do that?” Auriemma said. ‘That never happened before; that that many different teams would win. That’s something I know CD and I are exceptionally proud of, that we had a hand in that. Wherever we went, we tried to help grow the game.”
In recent years, with the rise of social media, outsiders have gotten a peek at the Auriemma players and coaches have known forever: The one who will yell at you in practice, then crack up at a joke you tell five minutes later. He’ll push you beyond your limit, then tell you a funny anecdote — he’s revered as a gifted storyteller — when you need to smile.
“I remember, and this was the early 2000s, he’d be like, ‘You’re the Yankees of women’s basketball, no one cares how you do if you don’t win!” Swin Cash, who won two national championships with UConn, recalled with a laugh. ‘And I’d be like, dude, we only got a couple championships what are you talking about we’re the Yankees? But then everywhere we went, we were rockstars. That oozing of confidence, it was how we attacked everything, on and off the court.”
Perhaps the most public display of this came during the 2021 NCAA Sweet 16, when then-freshman Paige Bueckers celebrated a big Husky shot by slapping Auriemma on the butt on her way back down the floor. Auriemma’s reaction — he wheeled around in disbelief, while viewers gasped at the moxie of an 18-year-old — became instantly meme-able fodder.
But insiders watched and reminded people Bueckers wasn’t the first to get away with something like that. Years ago, Taurasi hit a big shot and celebrated by rubbing Auriemma’s head.
‘If you’re just on the outside looking in, you don’t know there’s this whole other compassionate side,” Bird said. “When you play for him and really get to know him, you can be so playful with him. People see what Paige did and are like,’ — she gasps — ‘but the rest of us were like, yeah, that’s Coach.’
39 consecutive winning seasons, 23 consecutive Final Fours
The numbers alone tell a stunning story of success. In 40 years as a head coach Auriemma has had only one losing season — his first, in 1985-86, when the Huskies went 12-15 overall and 4-12 in conference.
Since then he’s been on a roll, winning his first conference title in 1989 and his first national championship in 1995. Along the way, he’s piled up winning streaks of 90 and 111 games, and played in every NCAA Tournament since 1989.
It is especially impressive when you consider, as former Virginia coach Debbie Ryan likes to say, that the Huskies were “practically playing in a barn when he got there,’ a reference to UConn’s limited resources then for women’s basketball. Ryan gave Auriemma his first job, hiring him as a Cavaliers assistant in 1981. He was there for four years before moving to Storrs and taking the reins at a school with just one winning season since the program’s creation in 1974.
He was hired for less than $25,000 a year. He now makes more than $3 million.
No one could have anticipated what was to come, least of all Auriemma. He described his journey as “a favor I did for somebody that turned into a hobby to pass the time, and then it just became all this. I never envisioned it lasting this long.’
To his peers and competitors, it all goes back to Auriemma’s work ethic.
“This guy is a grinder,” said DePaul coach Doug Bruno, one of Auriemma’s closest friends. “People think he’s just this glamour puss walking around in front of TV cameras. No, he’s worked from the ground up, built his program from the ground up. Those great players weren’t just dropped on his doorstep — he established a program where they wanted to go.”
So what’s left?
No one is sure how much longer Auriemma, who has three children and four grandchildren with his wife Kathy, will coach. UConn hasn’t won a title since 2016, an eternity in Storrs. But Lobo isn’t convinced that one more trophy would send him packing.
‘Really, what more is there for him to do?” she said. “No one else is ever going to win 11 (championships). It’s not like he has to get 12 to prove himself. No one else is going to go to 23 Final Fours, and definitely no team is ever winning 111 games again.
“But that’s not what it’s about. For him, it’s all about how he can help these players experience these moments, how can I help them become better people and players? It’s never about him.”
Tonight it is.
This post appeared first on USA TODAY
