The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Auriemma must be careful with word choices
Let’s roll back to the final minute of UConn women’s 74-58 loss to Baylor at the XL Center. With 53 seconds left and the Huskies down 15, Kyla Irwin fouled Te’a Cooper.
“What are they doing?” said one writer sitting next to me.
Cooper hit both free throws. Eleven seconds later, after Crystal Dangerfield hit a 3-pointer, she immediately fouled Cooper.
“What the hell are they thinking?” I said.
Those words were barely out of my mouth when Geno Auriemma, incredulous his team was purposely fouling with such a large deficit and such little time remaining, replaced Dangerfield with Molly Bent.
In the grand scheme of things — UConn’s mostlopsided loss since 2007, a 98-game home winning streak broken, an undefeated No. 1 team demonstrating it wasn’t No. 1 — the lastminute sequence means little. Yet, in the moment, the lack of awareness irritated Auriemma.
That’s the logistical context of Auriemma sitting down for the post-game press conference last Thursday and it clearly was still on his mind when the first question centered on the Huskies’ overall fourthquarter meltdown. Sixtyfive seconds into a comprehensive, two-minute explanation, Auriemma, as almost an aside, said:
“Let me tell you how immature they are, too. There’s a minute left in the game and they’re fouling thinking we can get a 16point play. Is that dumb or what? Ah, you know we’re going to lose by eight, what’s the difference if we lose by
17?”
Two-second pause and then an exasperated, “Dummies.”
Auriemma went on to complete his answer. That’s what happened. And this happened, too. “Only Geno could get away with this stuff,” Trey Wingo said the following day on the “Golic and Wingo” show on ESPN.
“He’s not getting away with it,” Mike Golic Jr. said. “He’s a pretty big jerk for calling a bunch of college kids dumb.”
“It’s worked out for him on more than one occasion,” Wingo said.
“I get it,” Golic Jr. said. “He’s still a huge jerk for doing that … You called a bunch of college kids dummies in a press conference after a game. You’re a big strong man. Congratulations.”
Mike Golic Sr. called it
“bad look for (Auriemma). We can sit there and say that’s him. He’s tough. He’s rough. He does that. God knows what else, who knows?”
Chiney Ogwumike had some comments on ESPN. There was a scattershot of criticism on Twitter, some from amateur youth coaches. In defense of Auriemma, former UConn star Gabby Williams sent one tweet that a critic didn’t know what goes on in the UConn locker room and how the program operates. Auriemma’s daughter Alysa, who tweeted she was yelling at the TV screen not to foul, dummies, later tweeted, “why foul when you’re down 16 with a minute left, dummies” is apparently tantamount to abuse? WHERE DID WE GO WRONG AS A SOCIETY.”
That’s a loaded question, Alysa.
In one way, we have allowed the single word to become more important than the entire thought. And, in another, we have allowed the unedited twitter mob and the unfiltered talk show medium to become judge and jury.
This is 2020. In 140 characters, Auriemma’s “dummies” comment can go from an exasperated expression for “nitwits” about young people he loves and has nurtured and, yes, pushed hard … to tweets of accusing him of verbal abuse of young athletes and of women during the #MeToo movement. Don’t believe me? Check Twitter.
In a 2015 Grantland podcast with Zach Lowe, Auriemma told Zach Lowe, “Some of our fans are so
(g-damn) stupid it’s unbelievable.” He also said, “Women who bitch and moan all the time about not getting any respect do a horrible job of supporting women’s sports at the gate with their money.” In a 6,800-word piece by author Pat Jordan in Deadspin, Auriemma was quoted with nine f-bombs, six s-bombs, three d-bombs and one a-bomb.
My point in a column then in The Hartford Courant and it is again here is that Auriemma must always be aware of his choice of words. I’m the last guy who should lecture anyone on cursing, but Auriemma is in such of position of leadership and respect in the women’s athletic world that even in his most genuine and authentic moments people can twist his raw words.
And they do.
Some love to.
When you talk to him off the record or when he grows comfortable with a medium that allows curse words, Auriemma has always dropped more swears. He’s real. Sometimes, for certain audiences, too real.
Yet even with 11 national championships, he isn’t bulletproof. Not in 2020.
One word can kill a career.
Some words, obviously, you never use. If Auriemma had used the word “retarded” instead of dummies, for example, I’d be calling for immediate and harsh punitive measures.
But “dummies” in the exasperated sense of knuckleheads? Wow. Back in 1998, Auriemma was so upset over my disparaging view of his gift record-setting basket to injured Nykesha Sales, he asked, “Who made you the g-damn moral gatekeeper of Connecticut?” One thing is for sure. I don’t want to be the word gatekeeper of Connecticut. Is there a freshly-printed 20192020 season PC manual that I can give to coaches and hold them accountable? Who’s the word boss? Here’s some of the many synonyms given in dictionary for dummy: airhead, birdbrain, bonehead, bubblehead, chowderhead, chucklehead, clodpole, dimwit, dolt, doofus, dope, dork, dullard, dum-dum, dumbbell, dummkopf, dunce, golem, goof, goon, half-wit, hammerhead, hardhead, idiot, ignoramus, imbecile, jackass, knucklehead, lamebrain, meathead, nimrod, nincompoop, ninnyhammer, nitwit, numbskull, oaf, pinhead, ratbag, schlub, simpleton, stupid, woodenhead, yahoo.
Idiot, jackass and imbecile are definitely out. What if Auriemma uses ninnyhammers instead of dummies? Is that acceptable?
I reminded of Joseph Heller and the line in
Catch-22: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
Make no mistake, they’re after Auriemma.
Coaches who want so badly to beat him that they have at times turned green with jealousy.
Women who don’t want men coaching in the women’s game.
Lots of people who don’t like Auriemma’s smart aleck manner.
People who have grown so tired of UConn winning that they’re convinced they are bad for the game.
Some in the media who just get a kick out of causing trouble and couldn’t care less about the women’s game.
Some who are simply twitter trolls.
What we haven’t seen is Auriemma fired or punished or accused of mistreating his players. And that’s happened at plenty of other programs by both women and men coaches.
What we have seen is player after player, highly successful pro players or successful women outside the game, return for lifelong friendships and mentoring.
Watch carefully at those televised NCAA Tournament press conferences. You’ll see coaches on the podium and none of the players would dare speak up about that coach without direction. Auriemma will say something, one will interject with a joke, or say something like, “Wow, coach just complimented my defense.” They jab him, too. I don’t see the abuse.
There will be those who read this and paint me as a homer, which is garbage. They will not know our history, the disagreements, a few epic battles over a quarter century of covering him. Off that same press conference after Baylor, in fact, I swiped Auriemma for talking about teams constantly in the top 10-15 in the country that haven’t won a national championship in any of his players’ lifetime. “So I’m good,” he said.
I thought those words were less than magnanimous from an 11-time national champion in defeat. And I wrote it.
After the rout of Houston on Saturday Auriemma said he was proud of his intelligent team.
Of course, he did. He’s a smart ass and the greatest coach in the history of the women’s game.
“I’m not worried about what somebody out there thinks,” Auriemma said.
He should worry about the words he says. Somehow they’ve come to count more than the entire thought.
And there are a lot of ninnyhammers out there.
jeff.jacobs@hearstmediact .com; @jeffjacobs123