Coaches talk winning
Auriemma, Kerr talk UConn, Taurasi and basketball during event in California
There's one thing UConn coach Geno Auriemma and Warriors coach Steve Kerr have in common that's abundantly clear: winning. Last week Auriemma and Kerr sat down with Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb ahead of the Huskies' game against the Golden Bears to talk about how they deal with success and failure.
There’s one thing UConn coach Geno Auriemma and Warriors coach Steve Kerr have in common that’s abundantly clear: Winning.
Last week Auriemma and Kerr sat down with Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb ahead of the Huskies’ game against the Golden Bears to talk about how they deal with success and failure, along with a variety of other topics. Proceeds from the event benefited the Cal women’s basketball program.
During the hour and a half talk on Cal’s campus, Auriemma and Kerr covered a wide range of topics that began with how their definitions of success have changed over the years. For the UConn coach, success has evolved from him proving he can win and coach at this level to simply trying to put his teams in the best position possible and being able to accept whatever the outcome may be.
In accepting the occasional i nevitable l osses, Auriemma said it’s important to not always harp on what the team did wrong, but to give credit to the hard work and success of the team that won.
“The more you win, I think people get this perception of you. Everyone loves a winner, right?
Until they don’t. Everybody loves a winner until you win all the time, and then they’re sick of you winning all the time,” Auriemma said. “So you do get to that point where you now have an opportunity to live up to their expectations or live down, I should say. Or let people know that that’s not really who I am. The more you win the more you have to be cognizant of the fact that every game you win someone lost. So 11 times we’ve left the Final Four and there have been kids crying in the other locker room. Well, it was our turn.
“If you think, like Steve said, that that won’t happen to you, why are we even keeping score? Let’s just play an exhibition and walk away and say ‘Hey, Connecticut looked great today.’ Well, if we’re keeping score that means the other teams allowed to win once in a while. And it can’t be ‘Well what happened to Connecticut? They lost.’ At some point you have to acknowledge that the other team played great. Whether you played poorly or not doesn’t matter. The other team had to play good enough to beat you, so if you don’t give credit to other people when they beat you what you’re saying is beating them doesn’t mean anything either.”
Auriemma hasn’t had to deal with many losses in recent years with UConn remaining a college basketball powerhouse, and it’s that level of success that’s brought up a question: Is UConn bad for women’s basketball? The question is one that’s often caused the coach to roll his eyes because he looks at Alabama in college football and the Warriors in the NBA and wonders why they’re not being questioned in the same way.
He said he sees both of those teams as helping elevate their sports by pushing other teams to better themselves so they’re capable of competing at the level of an Alabama and Golden State. He sees UConn as being that for women’s basketball — a standard others should aspire to reach in order to compete.
“In essence, are we bad for women’s basketball? Not really,” Auriemma said. “Only if you don’t intend to get better. If you want to stay where you are then you say ‘Connecticut’s bad for women’s basketball.’ If you want to get better you look at us and say ‘Look, I don’t know what they’re doing but I’m going to try to find out and I’m going to do it just like them because obviously it works.’ So we’re actually good for the game. ... You have to appreciate whoweare, what wedoand and how we do it and try to be like us. At some point you’re going to get tired of losing to us.”
The discussion concluded with a rapid fire question-and-answer period, which included Auriemma sharing some interesting insight. He said the most difficult players he’s coached have all been national players of the year. He also said he thinks Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi would be successful coaches. Taurasi would also be the player he would most trust to make a buzzer-beater, with Bird as a close second.
Kerr also took time to praise Taurasi, saying she’s the women’s basketball player he would most like to coach. Kerr and Taurasi got to know each other when Kerr was in the Phoenix Suns’ organization.
“She was so dynamic as a personality, as a player,” Kerr said. “She was incredible to watch. Her talent just jumped off the page. But it was so fun to see her every day, her enthusiasm. She just had this enthusiasm for the game … It was infectious. You could see the impact she makes, so as a coach that’s what you want is someone who can set a tone and who you’re going to love being around.”