The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Auriemma, Albany assistant Griffith share bond
STORRS » The mere mention of Geno Auriemma’s name elicited a playful cackle from women’s basketball legend Yolanda Griffith.
Sitting in the locker room inside Gampel Pavilion used by 16th-seeded Albany, the Great Danes’ first year assistant coach probably could have spent the next hour repeating some of the classic stories from the wise-cracking Auriemma from their time together helping the United States to the 2000 Olympic gold medal. Perhaps some of those stories could even be printed in the newspaper, but Griffith wasn’t quite ready to spill the beans.
“A lot of his stories he used to tell ...,” Griffith said. “Every day when we go out and I see him on the road recruiting, he brings back memories of letting me know that I was one of the players he appreciated and loved to work with when he did the Olympics because I just went out and did my job, no questions asked. I do my job, I compete every day in practice and we formed a good bond, a good relationship.”
Auriemma, facing Griffith for the first time with both of them in a coaching capacity, wasn’t about to limit his characterization at merely being a “good relationship.”
“She was by far my favorite player to coach on that Olympic team,” Auriemma said. “She was the toughest, most competitive, I think most talented, the smartest. She was
relentless in everything she did. You could count on her every day in practice every game. Up to that point I had only seen her play at a distance, but getting a chance to spend time and actually work with her, I came out of there thinking this kid is something special, she is a special human being. I respect the fact that she enjoyed being coached.”
Griffith was the leading rebounder and No. 3 scorer on a U.S. team that won the Olympic gold medal despite playing without the injured Chamique Holdsclaw.
At the time when Auriemma was one of U.S. head coach Nell Fortner’s assistant coaches, he was coming off his second national championship as the head coach at UConn. He is now at 11 and his Huskies are the No. 1 overall seed as they chase their fifth in a row and 12th overall title.
“Geno has established a strong organization, a strong pedigree as far as women’s basketball goes,” Griffith said. “His footprint is all over women’s basketball and he is winning no matter who he puts on the court, what individual puts the uniform on, they know the pressure is on them to help the program to win. I had that experience in 2000 when he was an assistant with our Olympic team. He was very competitive bringing the best out of players. He is hard on you and that is one thing about being a competitive player, you want them to be hard so they can teach you the good, the bad of the game and that is what he’s done. Hat’s off to him, he’s been successful with this program and that is what you want. You want not just one strong program but multiple programs in women’s sports to continue to be successful.”
Griffith is 10th in rebounding, 16th in blocked shots and 26th in scoring in WNBA history even though she played her final game in the league in 2009. There have been prominent WNBA legends who have used their fame to secure high-profile coaching jobs before they were ready. Griffith has been willing to pay her dues serving as an assistant coach at Dartmouth, Lafayette and UMass before joining the staff of first-year Albany coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee after former Great Danes coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson took the job at UCF,
“If you look at where she comes from, it is not one of entitlement,” Auriemma said. “It was not one of, ‘Do you know who I am and do you know what I deserve?’ She is willing to do it the way she did it as a player. She is going to work for everything she gets and she expects to start at the bottom and work her way up because that is how it has always been for her, and she will get to the top because that is who she is.”
Griffith is one of eight players to be named the WNBA MVP and Finals MVP. She is also a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2014.
Coaching was something that Griffith knew she wanted to pursue even during her Hall of Fame career. When she suffered a careerending torn Achilles’ tendon early in the 2009 season, her opportunity came sooner than she imagined as the WNBA’s Indiana Fever made her an adjunct assistant coach in 2009.
“It was just in me when I was playing,” Griffith said. “I was a mentor, a coach, a player so I just felt like it was in me to be my next journey.”
Griffith enjoys the process whether it is recruiting or seeing young prospects emerge into reliable veterans.
“When you start working with players when they are freshmen until they are seniors, you see their development,” Griffith said. “You form that relationship and knowing that you are just a phone call away. It is not a matter of what you do with them on the court but what you do for them when they leave.”