Rested Auriemma returns with new perspective
STORRS — Fully rested, and with a tweaked perspective, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma has rejoined his team.
“You don’t understand,” said Auriemma, who has missed four games this season while dealing with grief over his mother’s passing, sleep deprivation and generally feeling unwell. “I’ve coached for 35, 40 years thinking if we don’t win the national championship I’m going to get fired. That’s not a healthy way to live.
“So you have to come to the realization that, no, we’ve been to 14 Final Fours in a row. If we don’t go to a 15th, it’s like the program is falling apart ... and in reality, none of that is true. But these are the things you carry around with you. So I think this has given me an opportunity to just go, ‘It is what it is.’ ”
Auriemma’s mother, Marsiella, died in early December. He missed games Dec. 18 against Florida State at Mohegan Sun Arena and Dec. 20 against Seton Hall in Hartford. Auriemma returned to the Huskies for two games and a weekplus, then stepped back again, missing games road games at Butler ( Jan. 2) and Xavier ( Jan. 5).
Unannounced, he got on the team bus Wednesday and coached UConn that night in a victory at St. John’s.
Auriemma met the media for the first time since on Saturday at the Werth Champions Center.
“I feel good,” he said. “I feel rested. I’m rested and I intend to stay that way. It was supposed to be a couple weeks and I turned it into five days and, needless to say, it backfired. We regrouped and got the medication right.”
The emotional stress over his mother’s death came in waves, Auriemma said, and he found himself unable to sleep.
“When you can’t sleep, nothing else works,” he said. “So you’re kept awake by a million things going through your mind. It’s not like you’re not tired. Yeah, I’m tired. But your mind is working. Your mind is going 100 miles per hour and your body is going 50. And you can’t catch up, you can’t catch up, you can’t catch up. And it’s just constant, constant, constant. You’re thinking about things that you want to do, that you have to do — that you can’t do. So you’re doing crossword puzzles at 3 o’clock in the morning, hoping that this will put me to sleep.”
Auriemma was extremely close to his mother. He traveled to the Philadelphia area days before her passing, knowing what was ahead.
“I think when you go through something like that, you kind of talk yourself into thinking that you’re quite prepared,” Auriemma said. “When I went down there, it was on a Monday, Dec. 5, you think that you can handle whatever’s coming next. And the next couple of days, when you know it’s imminent, and you’re there for three days and that’s when it first — you’re up 24 hours a day.
“You try to get everything done that you need to get done, say everything you need to say, and try to put a final bow on it. But it’s the late effect that happens. The initial rationalization, like, of course, this is the way it’s supposed to happen, this is how it works. Then you see the effect it has on my sister, who’s been probably with her every single day for the last three years. That’s like a huge, huge, huge loss for her. So every time you saw her and her face and her reaction, it triggers another one. And it probably isn’t until you get home.”
Auriemma, 68, needed to step away from the team for his health and the experience of those in his program, he said.
“You can’t lay down and close your eyes,” Auriemma said. “You can’t sit there and do anything without that image popping into your head. You can’t get it out of your head, no matter what you try to do. And you try to keep busy and you try to do something. And the minute there’s a quiet moment, it’s right there, right in front of you. It’s constant. So you try to fill it by going to work and doing things. And you’re not really present, you’re not in the moment. So you’re not really doing anything to help the people on your team because your mind isn’t there. So now you’re mad, really mad, at yourself because you can’t compartmentalize the two things. And then the team is practicing and it’s not going good, and you take it out on them when, really, they have nothing to do with it. It’s all because you personally don’t feel comfortable in your skin. And it just escalates. That was the sign that you have to walk away.”
The fourth-ranked Huskies (14-2) play Georgetown Sunday at 4 p.m. at the XL Center.
“I’ve coached for 35, 40 years thinking if we don’t win the national championship I’m going to get fired. That’s not a healthy way to live.”
— Geno Auriemma, UConn women’s basketball coach