AN EVOLVING AND EMPOWERING MAN
A view from the Geno Auriemma coaching tree
Marisa Moseley remembers one of the first questions she asked UConn coach Geno Auriemma when she was interviewing for a position on his staff more than a decade ago: “What makes you keep coming back?”
Auriemma, who was coming off his sixth national championship in 2009, responded with a question of his own.
“He asked me if I had ever won a national championship,” said Moseley, who had played at Boston University before stops as an assistant coach at Denver and Minnesota. “I had won an America East championship.”
Auriemma continued: “Every freshman who walks through that door has never won a national championship, and that’s what keeps me going.”
Auriemma is now in his 36th season. His 11 national titles are second to none — legendary UCLA men’s coach John Wooden is next on the list with 10, but Duke’s Mike
Krzyzewski is the closest active coach with five.
While that record seems secure, there’s another the Hall of Famer is chasing. His next victory will be the 1,098th of his career, tying him with late Tennessee coach Pat Summitt for second all-time in the women’s game. Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, also currently active, is alone on top with 1,103 wins.
Auriemma will likely tie Summitt when UConn hosts Providence on Saturday. The Huskies were scheduled to play at Baylor Thursday, but that game was canceled Tuesday after Baylor coach Kim Mulkey tested positive for COVID-19.
As Auriemma closes in on another milestone, members of his coaching tree reflected on his career longevity, his desire to be great, and the lessons they learned under his guidance.
EVER-EVOLVING
Auriemma believes in changing his approach from one year to the
next. He’s always tinkering, experimenting and improvising, looking for new ways to achieve the same result.
As the game has changed, so has Auriemma. He is as passionate about learning as he is teaching, and has been known to visit NBA training camps, including the Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs, in search of new wrinkles to bring back to Storrs.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Moseley said, “he has things he’s set in his ways about. But we had a saying, if you don’t evolve you evaporate. We had to continue to evolve.”
Auriemma’s had to evolve not just what he teaches, but how. He often laments that today’s players aren’t as receptive to criticism as players from the past.
“As much as he is steadfast to sticking to the values and principles as a person, he’s very flexible,” said George Washington coach Jen Rizzotti, who starred on Auriemma’s first national championship team in 1995. “The kids change. They’re different than they were 10 years ago, they’re different than they were 20 years ago. I can’t imagine how different they are from 40 years ago when he started. …
“I know that it’s different for him. I think a lot of former players joke about how soft he’s gotten. But in reality, you have to.”
Auriemma’s run of success is unparalleled in college basketball, and it wouldn’t be possible without that relentless drive, the refusal to settle, and the willingness to adapt. UConn has won 25 games or more in 27 straight seasons. His .885 winning percentage (1,097-142) is No. 1 all-time.
Oh, and he hasn’t lost back-to-back games since 1993.
“It’s not really reality,” said Hartford coach Morgan Valley, who played under Auriemma from 2000-04 and won three national titles. “I remember thinking my first job you should win every game. The chances of you winning every single game you play, it doesn’t happen.”
It doesn’t, of course, but that hasn’t stopped Auriemma from trying.
“There’s never a time that he just decides not to do anything,” said Temple coach Tonya Cardoza, who worked under Auriemma from 19942008. “He’s always on. We used to talk about the time when we could win by 30 and he’d come in the next day and find something to be upset
about. That’s what makes him so good. He works at it. He works to be better.
“My first year was our first championship. Even then he was striving to be great. That’s just who he is. That’s the way he was raised — to work hard. To be around him and to watch him and now take over my own program and try to emulate a lot of those things, no one can be like him, but there’s so many good qualities and good things that I try to instill in my team.”
INSTALLING A BELIEF
Year 1 can be eye-opening for a first-time head coach.
“I think it’s like having a kid,” Valley said. “You can prepare and plan all you want, and then once the kid’s here, you’re like, ‘Wow, this is what it’s like.’ ”
Yet, those who have worked or in some cases played under Auriemma like to think he made the transition to the top seat on the bench a bit easier.
Moseley won 15 games and was named the Patriot League’s top coach in her first season at BU in 2019. Prior to that, she spent nine seasons with the Huskies, winning five national championships and never missing a Final Four.
“I think he just installed belief and confidence that I was ready even though I was not sure I was ready,” she said. “He was really good at building you up, even though I think a lot of people think he’s tearing you down. I found him very empowering.”
Auriemma, Moseley says, gives his assistants lots of autonomy, and plenty of room to speak their mind. She suspects it’s one reason why Auriemma’s staff — currently consisting of associate head coach Chris Dailey along with assistants and former UConn players Shea Ralph and Jamelle Elliott — has had so little turnover throughout the years.
“Part of my role, whether it was explicit or not,” Moseley said, “was to be myself, knowing when to provide comedic relief. As I got older and I got more years under myself, I was comfortable saying my piece. He was honest. Like, I didn’t bring you guys here to be yes people.
“I think there’s this kind of oncamera persona that he’s this kind of tyrant. I’ve had people ask, ‘How was it?’ He made his expectations really clear. He did push you, he wanted us to be really good, but so did we.”
Valley didn’t coach under Auriemma, but she did spend a little extra time around him after injuries curtailed her aspirations of playing beyond college. She was a student assistant at UConn for the 2004-05 season, with responsibilities running the gamut from attending coaches’ meetings, helping to prepare scouting reports, and watching film.
Valley won just one game her first season at Hartford in 2020, but is off to a 3-3 start this year.
“He hires people who work hard and want to win and have the same values as him,” Valley said. “He lets you work. He’s not going to micromanage you.”
Carla Berube — Rizzotti’s former teammate — went 29-1 and was named the Ivy League Coach of the Year at Princeton in 2020. Previously she was at Tufts, where she won four NESCAC titles and made four trips to the Division III Final Four. She’s also coached internationally with USA Basketball, as has Rizzotti.
“It happened years later that I sort of walked into this field, but I certainly was inspired by my career and my experience under Coach (Auriemma),” Berube said. “I do think I am a product of the environment that he built, a winning tradition, what it takes to be successful on the court as a player, but also watching him and CD and the rest of the staff go about their business. A lot of my philosophies and values, it’s pretty much the same.”
‘GOD, THIS GUY’S GOING TO COACH FOREVER’
Auriemma turns 67 in March and has always said he’ll keep coaching as long as he feels healthy and is getting star talent.
“It’s funny,” Rizzotti said. “I remember sitting down with him 10 to 12 years ago, and he said how, I don’t know much longer I can do this. Here we are, maybe decade later, and he’s still going.
“I watch him some games and I think, man, he’s not going to make it through the season. Then there’s games where, God, this guy’s going to coach forever.”
Rizzotti, who spent the first 17 seasons of her coaching career at Hartford, thinks Auriemma might feel differently had he bounced around places.
“This is his baby. He’s built this from nothing,” Rizzotti said. “There’s a lot of pride that goes into that.”