GENO
has learned many things during the pandemic
Connecticut knows Geno
Auriemma as a man for all seasons, especially the basketball season, a voice to provoke us, soothe us, humor us on most any topic.
We ask the Hall of Fame coach things, different things, everything. UConn even asked him to be a virtual commencement speaker when COVID-19 prevented anyone from attending graduation live. Yes, he can even entertain an empty room.
“People are asking me what I’ve discovered during this quarantine thing,” Auriemma said Wednesday. “I discovered Superman isn’t Clark Kent. Jack Bauer is Superman.
“This shows you how wacky my life has been all these years. I’m watching ‘24’ for the first time. How old is that TV show? It started 18-19 years ago. I’m up to Season 6. How far were they ahead of the times? They had two black presidents before Obama. I’m fascinated by the level of technology (in counterterrorism). If that’s what was happening in 2002, what in God’s name is happening today at those places?”
While the sports world waits, Auriemma has become more dedicated to his workouts. The golf course is one place he’s still allowed to be himself and not have to talk to anybody. He learned how to Zoom and now he’s dangerously close to being Zoomed out. He learned how to do Instagram Live, has done a few of those. The other day there was a glitch on Villanova coach Jay Wright’s end, caused a bunch of complaints and led Auriemma to say, “I’ve noticed people
are really mean on social media.”
He goes on eating the same things for breakfast and lunch. He throws on the same pair of pants.
“My biggest realization the past 21⁄2 months,” Auriemma said, “is how little I need to live on.”
After Auriemma was asked to give the graduation speech earlier this month, he had a conversation with his 88-year-old mom, Marciella.
“In her own Italian way, she was telling me why she hates what’s going on and how God is mad at everybody,” Auriemma said. “She’s like, ‘Our time is over. This is horrible for the kids.’ She was distraught about what she was seeing on TV and how her granddaughter and great-granddaughter had to speak to her through the screen door.”
He tried to offer his mom some perspective.
“I’m like, ‘When you were 13-14 you were chased out of your house by the German soldiers and you and your brothers and sisters went up in the mountain and built a shelter and lived there for a couple weeks. You thought it would never end and no one would survive it and you did.’
“Every Italian family in America had two portraits in their house: Pope John XXIII and JFK. She’s in the U.S. for two years and JFK is assassinated. She sent me to school wondering if a nuclear bomb was going to hit. We’re hiding under our desks. We thought the world was coming to an end.”
Through the Great Depression, World War II, the decade of Vietnam and Civil Rights, 9/11 and now to high school and college seniors in 2020, Auriemma had this message for UConn graduates, for all young people:
“Generations are defined by the events of that time. All those people figured out a way to learn from it and make something better out of what happened. You will look back at this as a monumental time. You are being thrown into a dangerous situation for you in the world, very uncomfortable. This is an opportunity for people today to be on the cutting edge of something to change the world.
“Do I need to go to the mall three times a week? Do I really need to be online ordering more stuff ? How much can I do without? What am I willing to do to change? What am I doing for other people? What am I doing to make my neighborhood better? Am I going to be responsible, stay home when I’m supposed to and wear a mask?”
Auriemma, 66, immigrated to the U.S. when he was a kid. Americans, he said, are similar to Italians in one sense: When laws are passed in Italy, each Italian thinks they have the right to decide if the law applies to them. In the case of COVID-19, having learned a hard, deadly lesson, Italians bought into social distancing and masks.
“Americans are so individualistic, the entire basis of this country is individual freedom. ‘If I don’t want to wear a mask I don’t have to wear a mask.’ You don’t have to if you don’t want. However, if you not wearing a mask makes me sick, you are a disgrace to humanity.
“We all have this vision of what’s best for us? Always. Always. What’s best for me? When I vote it’s what is best for me. I never take into account the bigger picture. I have been thinking about this and it’s funny how it works. I’m thinking people won’t vote against giving teachers a raise anymore. After teaching their kids in their own house for two months, every single parent is going, ‘These teachers aren’t getting paid enough. My kids are jerks. And now you’re saying this poor teacher has to deal with my kid and everyone else’s kid. God bless them.’ ”
Auriemma was a political science major. He loves history, loves to read about it. From Caesar to Napoleon to Kennedy, you name it. He is haunted by what he sees today.
“You come across an idea now and you go ‘this is a great idea,’ ” Auriemma said. “But then someone goes, ‘If you do that, it will label you a Democrat, a liberal.’ Just because I like the idea? This is a great concept. Let’s try it. ‘Well, that means you’re a Republican, a conservative.’ Why? Why can’t I have thoughts that fluctuate as I try to balance my feelings about what is right or what I prefer. Why can’t I be somewhere in the middle?
“Why can’t I say I like some things in Column A and some in Column B. But if I like something in Column A, it doesn’t mean I hate everyone in Column B. That’s the world adults have created for our kids. We’re raising a whole generation of people who don’t trust anything about anybody, anywhere, anytime. Or the opposite. They trust everything someone says regardless of whether it’s true or not. There is no ‘let me figure out what parts are part of my belief system.’ ”
Auriemma stops to ask whatever happened to a great moderate Republican or a conservative Democrat? He continues on his roll.
“We have allowed people the freedom that this country entitles you to ruin our lives in so many ways,” Auriemma said. “You have the freedom to do it. The Constitution
allows you to ruin my life. The Constitution gives the president the freedom to go on television and essentially accuse someone of murder. There’s no repercussion. None. Zero. That used to be unthinkable.
“And now we have a blink-of-theeye mentality. You look real quick and turn away before you see the negative. Or you look real quick and you see tremendous negatives but if you stayed a little longer you would have seen the positives. We’re not conditioned to that anymore. We’re conditioned to react to the first thing we see and forget doing any kind of research or future reading. So here we are.”
Yes, here we are with Geno the restaurant owner. One who recently closed Geno’s Grille in Storrs. One who owns Café Aura in Manchester, which has donated many meals to health care workers.
“This is all you need to know about what I’m talking about,” he said. “Someone posted a review of a restaurant on one of those review boards. The restaurant hadn’t even opened yet.”
He was a dishwasher in high school. He worked as a bartender. He stocked supermarket shelves from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. He drove a truck delivering produce. Got into Philly at 5 a.m. He saw what the supply side looked like and what those workers are paid in order for people to have food on their table or a meal at a restaurant.
“But you’re a kid and you made life better for yourself because you had a couple of bucks in your pocket,” Auriemma said. “From owning a restaurant, I see there are people working those jobs who are tying to raise a family, pay a mortgage, send their kid to school, pay health insurance.
“The restaurant business brings to life how widespread the tentacles are when a restaurant closes, when the restaurant industry goes into the kind of downfall that it has. What the effects are. What I learned is there is no going back to where we were in some cases.”
That doesn’t mean the permanent end of a New York-style restaurant where people are sitting close together. That will return at some point. “You can’t have everyone sitting 6-feet apart with Plexiglass between forever,” Auriemma said. “If we wanted that I’d go to an office building and ask someone if I can use their cubicle. That’s not happening. What’s going to change is how we treat people who stock shelves, cashiers, servers, cooks. A lot of the restaurant people I know in the business, we laugh at this immigration policy. Listen, I’m an immigrant. I came to America from across the ocean. There was no sneaking in for me. I can’t swim the length of a pool.
“I understand the uproar on illegal immigration. I’m a big proponent that we’ve got to fix the whole system. But anyone who thinks they’re going into any service industry sees the value of what they bring with goods and services. How these people actually live and try to survive. We’re going to have to figure out a way to value jobs that to this point were seen as nonessential or inconsequential. The guy who delivers your packages, your mail, the bus driver, the train conductor, anybody who gets up every morning to makes sure your life is better that we tend to take for granted.”
Auriemma went over to Rentschler Field with his staff recently to help Foodshare distribute goods to those in need during the pandemic. His eyes were opened by the long lines.
“To see all the people come through looking for a way to eat that week,” Auriemma said. “Somebody at the end of February was OK, paying rent, getting in their car going to work, and a couple of months later they have none of it.
“History is rife with underrepresented, underappreciated masses of people rising up and changing the world they live in. I don’t give a damn if you go back to the Roman Empire, the American and French revolutions. The word is built on societies that are sick and tired of one group of people deciding the fate of the other three quarters of the people. At some point it’s going to get like the movie Network: ‘I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!’ That’s what I’ve learned through this.”