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The telephone rings. Geno Auriemma’s title pops up on the caller ID. It’s October, and the UConn head coach is surprisingly upbeat and fairly chatty given the business-first demeanor he usually exudes on the court docket, and most positively to the media throughout press conferences. He’s a legend, the Leonardo da Vinci answerable for igniting a renaissance in Storrs—and, actually, all of girls’s hoops—by creating the system for probably the most profitable program of all time in NCAA girls’s basketball. Nobody has extra championships or Closing 4 appearances than the Huskies. Nobody.
How’d he do it? Right here, Auriemma displays on his profession, his legacy, and if he thinks anybody else will ever have the ability to do it like he has…
SLAM: Coach, it’s an honor. How are you?
GENO AURIEMMA: Issues have been going fairly effectively. We simply began official practices, so we haven’t been going for very lengthy. These have gone fairly effectively. We’ll see what occurs within the subsequent week or so, however up to now, so good.
SLAM: How do you strategy the beginning of each season?
GA: Annually brings its share of similarities. There are particular issues that you simply wish to do, [but] there’s additionally the unknown. What sort of staff are we going to have? What do we’ve got to do totally different[ly] to accommodate this explicit staff? So it’s related in some methods, it’s totally different relying on the personnel that you’ve. However at all times the joy is there, the challenges are there each summer season, they’re simply totally different. It’s refreshing to get again on the court docket as a result of that’s what we love to do. We’ve been doing this for a very long time, and I feel we’ve got a reasonably good routine that we comply with and we go from there.
SLAM: How does yr 38 really feel?
GA: It’s 38, 39, I don’t even know what number of it’s. It’s bought the texture of different seasons that you simply’re excited and anxious about. You’re curious to learn the way it suits collectively. You get somebody like Paige Bueckers again, there’s an actual pleasure within the constructing. There’s an actual pleasure on our staff. Aaliyah Edwards performed a number of basketball final yr and a number of minutes, Nika Mühl, the 2 of them. Aubrey [Griffin] performed a ton of minutes. They picked up beneficial expertise. For me personally, there’s a number of pleasure of desirous to see what this staff might be. I really feel prefer it’s my job to ensure they get all of the sources and steering that they want from me and my employees to make it work for them.
SLAM: Let’s transition into the early days. Do you bear in mind the place you have been while you heard the information that you simply bought the job?
GA: No, I used to be right here. I bought an opportunity to satisfy with all people I wanted to satisfy with. I believed it went rather well. Then the subsequent day, our Athletic Director on the time, John Toner, who was additionally the President of the NCAA that helped implement Title IX took me apart. We bought in his automobile and drove right down to a Dunkin Donuts. We walked in and sat in these swirling stools that they’d on the counter again in these days after they had counters at Dunkin Donuts. We had espresso and he seemed me within the eye and he requested me if I needed to be the coach of the College of Connecticut. He instructed me that I had to do that the appropriate means and every little thing needed to be executed the appropriate means. He put his hand down and shook my hand and that was it. I used to be the coach on the College of Connecticut similar to that. I bought again to campus and we went into the workplace and he handed me a one-page piece of paper. It mentioned I used to be going to be the coach on the College of Connecticut for 5 years and I used to be going to receives a commission this and needed to signal right here. I signed it, and that was it. There was no agent concerned. There was no negotiating a wage. It was only a handshake. Right here’s your contract, $29,000. Take it or go away it.
SLAM: Through the ups and downs of the early years, what stored you going?
GA: What occurs in these conditions is, who you’ve gotten in your staff, in your program, in your employees or no matter, that’s the sources of your motivation. These three years that it was a battle, we stored our fingers crossed and simply stored working. Though it was troublesome, and there have been doubts, we by no means expressed these doubts to anyone—these have been inside. On the skin, all people thought every little thing was nice and we’re pushing and we’re dedicated and we’re going to be nice. The fact was, this was actually, actually troublesome, and we knew it was going to be troublesome, however we didn’t realize it was going to be this tough. And like I mentioned, it wasn’t till 1988, and 1989 once we received the common season and match, that there was some validation. Once we did win, it was now, How far can this group go? It turned out we have been capable of get to the Closing 4. Then we have been capable of get Rebecca Lobo to come back to UConn. We had a terrific group of individuals together with her and proper behind her that made it [feel like], Yeah, I actually don’t wish to be anyplace else. I wish to be proper right here with this group of individuals.
SLAM: You’re identified for cultivating future WNBA stars. Do you see who your gamers can turn out to be earlier than it even occurs?
GA: Once we see a participant in highschool, we’ve got an impression and we are saying, Hey, I see similarities between this child and so and so. They get to campus, and as you begin teaching them, you begin to really feel this like, Sure, this child’s actually bought one thing, or, Man I actually missed on this one. Or, you didn’t count on a lot, and also you go, Wow, this child is means higher than I believed. You coach all of them from the start like they don’t know something, and that’s the way in which we’ve at all times executed it. Whether or not we get a child who didn’t make first-team All-State, or we get a child who was Participant of the Yr out of highschool, we coach them the identical. We begin at first and we attempt to make them higher gamers. We’re not going to go in there and suppose that as a result of they’re this proficient or as a result of they have been all this, that they’re able to go. No, we deal with them like they don’t know something. Over a time frame, we maintain hammering away at that stuff, they turn into fairly good basketball gamers. After which yeah, it will get outlined by that—that is the Rebecca Lobo period, ’95’s Nationwide Championship. Our first All-American was Kerry Bascom, and that period [we] went from ending final within the Massive East earlier than we bought right here to going to the Closing 4. Then on Rebecca’s staff, we had Jennifer Rizzotti, Nationwide Participant of the Yr. We had Kara Wolters, Nationwide Participant of the Yr. We had Nykesha Gross sales, who ended up being a two-time All American right here and a WNBA celebrity. The Diana Taurasi period had 4 Olympians and a number of All-Individuals and Nationwide Gamers of the Yr. The Maya Moore period with Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery and simply superb All-Individuals and nice gamers. The Stewie [Breanna Stewart], Stefanie [Dolson], [Morgan] Tuck and Moriah Jefferson [era].
All these eras contain so many good gamers. Every a type of gamers was handled the very same means. They have been all coached the very same means, and possibly that’s why we had related successes with each considered one of them, as a result of we not often modified the system. I don’t care in the event you got here in with the power of Maya or Stewie, otherwise you got here in with restricted skill like a few of our different gamers, it didn’t matter. We have been going to teach you the very same means and we have been going to get the identical outcomes. Trying again, that consistency of how we’ve executed it’s one thing we’re happy with.
SLAM: Do you suppose the system and consistency are what’s contributed to this system’s success?
GA: For certain. The response that we get a number of occasions is, You might have the very best gamers. And I might suppose, effectively, we’ve got among the finest gamers, however we don’t have all the very best gamers. If we’re capable of get two of the very best gamers within the nation yearly, that’s solely two out of, say, 24 within the All-American Sport. So, the opposite 22 went someplace [else]. So you may’t simply say we received as a result of we get the very best gamers. However I feel the consistency and the sort of gamers that we get, that to me is the differentiator between us and different packages. It doesn’t imply that what we do is healthier than anyone else. It’s just a bit totally different. Once more, we don’t win yearly. That is the half that’s humorous: We’ve gone to 22 Closing Fours and people 22 Closing Fours have all come since 1991. In order that’s in 33 years. That’s fairly superb. Twenty-two Closing Fours in 33 years. That’s fantasy land, OK? In 22 Closing Fours, we received 11 nationwide championships and we’ve misplaced 11 occasions within the Closing 4. We don’t win on a regular basis. I feel our objective is to simply put ourselves in place to win on a regular basis; it doesn’t imply we’re going to. And that’s not the simplest factor on the earth to do. In right this moment’s web world, you’re both the very best within the nation otherwise you’re the worst within the nation. No one ever says, Yeah, they’re fairly good! Which is unhappy as a result of there are a number of fairly good groups. However now you’re both prime otherwise you’re the worst. There’s no in-between. That’s not the actual world. When you’re a staff or a coach or a participant, you begin to really feel the stress of these expectations. When you’re not cautious and also you get caught up in that, it doesn’t matter what number of good gamers you’ve gotten, you’re going to have a tough time successful.
SLAM: What has been the most important issue that’s made this system click on?
GA: We’ve heard on a regular basis that the UConn period or the dynasty is in demise, you realize, that it’s—it goes again to what I mentioned: there’s this notion that in the event you’re not successful nationwide championships, you’re not excellent. I simply suppose that, what makes it click on, particularly in right this moment’s world, is that you simply don’t enable your self to be caught up in all that stuff as a participant. You don’t turn out to be [caught up in the] web and what persons are saying about you. You retain recruiting gamers which can be extra selfless than they’re egocentric.
[Players] which can be prepared to surrender somewhat little bit of themselves with a view to win a championship and to play with different terrific gamers. There’s a number of gamers that wish to go to a college the place they’re going to be the focal point and it’s going to be all about them. What makes it click on for us, and why individuals would speak about us the way in which they do is as a result of we do discover gamers that wish to sacrifice a few of their very own targets for the massive objective, the staff objective. That’s somewhat bit rarer right this moment than it was after I began.
SLAM: Have you ever considered your legacy?
GA: I’ve thought of it throughout these occasions, when, possibly on the finish of the season, you simply completed a really troublesome season. Possibly you’re celebrating a championship otherwise you’re disillusioned in how the season ended, and also you surprise, Do I’ve it in me to maintain doing this? How a lot is taken out of you to perform all these items. And also you look again and also you see the issues which have occurred right here—I don’t know that I consider it when it comes to who’s coming after me or what am I abandoning, however I feel among the issues that we’re going to depart behind are in all probability undoable sooner or later. I don’t suppose anyone can sit right here and say, OK, pick a coach that you simply suppose goes to win 11 nationwide championships that’s teaching right this moment. You’d be hard-pressed. Decide a staff that received 111 in a row. Decide one which received 90 in a row, 3 times…Identify a program that’s going to go to 14 straight Closing Fours. Issues that we’ve executed legacy-wise are going to be undoable now. That’s in all probability not a nasty factor as a result of that signifies that the sport has grown a lot that it’s going to be tougher to perform any of these issues. Gamers are going to extra faculties than ever earlier than, totally different faculties. Coaches are doing an outstanding job of not simply recruiting, however of teaching. The legacy that’s going to be left right here by these folks that have labored right here and performed right here, some issues—we’re going to be within the document books for eternity. That’s one thing to be happy with, from myself to be happy with, which I’m, all of the coaches which have ever coached with me and each single participant that placed on a uniform right here at UConn over these 39 years. It’s their legacy, too.
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