Geno Auriemma
Geno Auriemma
Luigi "Geno" Auriemma is an Italian-born American college basketball coach and the head coach of the University of Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team. He has led UConn to eleven NCAA Division I national championships, a feat matched by no one else in college basketball, and has won seven national Naismith College Coach of the Year awards. Auriemma has been the head coach of the United States women's national basketball team since 2009, during which time his teams won the 2010...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth23 March 1954
CityMontella, Italy
Geno Auriemma quotes about
Everybody leaves at some point, ... You can't stay forever. There's going to come a day when I'm not coaching at Connecticut anymore. I would think everybody understands that. Tomorrow? Next month? No. Next year? Probably not. But anybody who says never is lying.
It's never easy to lose and it's especially difficult to lose if there's a conference championship at stake. So there's a tremendous amount of frustration right now and it's going to take us a while for us to get over that. This is one of the bigger challenges that we've ever had as a coaching staff and as a program in the last 10, 15 years. I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time, I know how difficult it's going to be.
I'm glad that she's been patient enough and not kind of succumb to what a lot of coaches succumb to. Which is at the first sign of success they jump up to what they think is a greener pasture -- a big-time job somewhere else. But she's been patient enough to kind of build something that's going to be long lasting.
It's been kind of hectic in some ways because you're here, there and everywhere trying to cram as many activities in as you can in a short period of time. But I think the closer you get to the actual event, the more it hits home with what's real about it opposed to in the beginning it's just an idea, just a thought.
As I look at stuff like this I say to myself, it's kind of odd because you always think of coaching as an opportunity for your players to stand up their on that podium and put the net around their neck and celebrate winning championships. You never think of yourself as being in that situation. You're only as good as the people that you get to direct, and if you're fortunate enough to have the best people to direct then you're one of the lucky few. I think that's kind of what this is all about. So it's hard for me to put it into perspective from a personal perspective.
I've been around her, I've coached her. When she gets it going, you can't guard her.
I don't even remember who the coach was before Sue. LSU and Sue became one and the same.
No one ever talks about our defense. Our defense has always been good. But when you have great offensive players like I've coached the last 15 years, it's hard to concentrate on our defense. But our defense has been pretty good.
She's very, very good under pressure. She doesn't get bothered by anything. That's why she's kind of hard for me to coach because when I talk to her, she don't listen because she's not affected by anything. I knew she was going to make the free throws.
It's kind of odd. She coached players who won national championships. She made women's basketball acceptable. And yet, she's not in the Hall of Fame. People say it's because she didn't coach long enough. I don't care whether she coached three years. When you win three national championships, you're in the Hall of Fame. So there's a lot of people that aren't in that should be.
There's 12 really good reasons (to stay), the 12 players on my team, ... And that's always going to be the case. You always coach for the players and you always coach for the enjoyment that you get out of it. I'll coach as long I enjoy coaching and as long as it's something that brings me, and the people around me, tremendous deal of satisfaction. When that's not the case any more I won't coach anymore. Here or anywhere else.
I told them before the (Providence) game started, every team that I've ever coached that was consistently good had seniors that were very, very consistent. And it's time now for this group to kind of separate themselves and say, 'Hey, it's time for me to have an impact every single game and not be in those peaks and valleys.' I think they've all kind of made that progression.
Our coaches said don't worry about her. She's hitting about one 3-pointer a game. It seemed like she made one about every five minutes.
I think we have a reputation of being a really good NCAA tournament team. There does seem to be a little more of an edge to our game, a little more of a focus. I don't think we get up tight. I see teams that get very, very tentative and tense at tournament time and I don't see us being like that generally. I think our approach as a coaching staff is pretty laid back. We want to reward our kids for a great season.