The winning record sets UConn’s Geno Auriemma apart. But the legacies of his players are a testament to his greatness

STORRS, Conn. – If you thought UConn coach Geno Auriemma would immediately get emotional and sentimental, you probably haven’t been paying attention for the past four decades. If you imagined him sitting back and taking in the moment instead of standing on the sidelines, you haven’t paid much attention to how he got to this point.

Instead, when Auriemma reached career No. 1,217 with an 85-41 win over Fairleigh Dickinson to become the winningest college basketball coach of all time, it was impossible not to see first the relief and then how much his head was spinning.

Even as the streamers dropped, 10,000 fans chanted “Ge-no! Gene-no!” and 63 of his former players filtered onto the ground to line up on the baseline, while Auriemma walked around the center of the court with his frustrations seemingly pouring out of him. How could his players let them score 55 percent in the first quarter? Why couldn’t they make a scoring move (up to 23 points) to end the first half? How could they shoot so poorly in the first half?

As he walked across the field, his former players gathered around him.

It’s impossible to quantify 1,217 wins or understand how Wednesday was truly different from Tuesday for Auriemma. He’ll say it wasn’t. The numbers, as concrete as they are, become a bit amorphous as they grow: 40 years, 11 league titles, 23 Final Fours, six undefeated seasons.

The greatest of all time. pic.twitter.com/BjanJZEWxs

— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) November 21, 2024

But people? They trigger something in him. When he took the microphone during Wednesday night’s postgame celebration, his voice cracked as he started talking about his players.

“No number of championships and no number of numbers or awards or anything like that can take the place of the lives that we’ve impacted, that they’ve allowed us to impact,” Auriemma said. “But they all had an impact on us.”

He continued.

“When it’s over, whenever it is, when this is all over, what we’ll remember is tonight. We will remember this,” he said, looking at his players. “And I will remember all my players. I’ll remember when they were 17 and the look in their eyes like, ‘Coach, can you help me with this?’ … Now we look back 40 years later, and I will say I don’t know how much I helped them, but they helped me get everything I wanted.”

Huskies forever 💙#NCAAWBB X @UConnWBB pic.twitter.com/85b4NOtpaI

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) November 21, 2024

In the crowd were the players everyone knows: Diana Taurasi, six-time Olympian and WNBA leading scorer; Sue Bird, a five-time Olympian and WNBA leader in assists and games played; Maya Moore, two-time Olympic champion and four-time WNBA champion. But there were also players few remember: three players from Auriemma’s first team of 1985 (the only losing season he ever had as a coach), former walk-ons and players who never became Olympians or All-Americans. Breanna Stewart, Swin Cash and Shea Ralph couldn’t make it, but they sent videos. Stewart is a WNBA MVP and champion, and she founded a new women’s basketball league. Cash is one of the highest-ranking women in an NBA front office. Ralph went on to direct her own college program at Vanderbilt.

For 40 years, Auriemma has coached players who will change women’s basketball for the next 40 years. That’s what and who surrounded him: the players who represent the past and future of the game.

“It made it easy to answer the question about how I feel about what just happened,” Auriemma said of breaking the record. “To just point to that and say, ‘This is what I was fortunate to have.’ No coach in America has been lucky enough to have the players I’ve had.”

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When the festivities were finally over and Auriemma had a chance to sit down, he said the moments he would remember most from the evening were the speeches by Bird, Moore, Taurasi and Rebecca Lobo. They each focused on what Auriemma and the program meant to them. Bird thanked Auriemma and his longtime assistant, Chris Dailey, for their impact on lives. Moore said the evening felt like coming home for a family dinner. Lobo emphasized that everyone was part of an evening with a record that will probably never be broken.

There was something special about the evening, and that’s what all those players came home for.

When Taurasi took the microphone, it hit Auriemma differently. He’s probably closer to her than any player he’s coached.

“What can you say to Auriemma and CD that hasn’t been said before? The good, the bad and the things you don’t want to hear when you get here,” Taurasi said. “As I see everyone here, whether we played on the same team, decades apart, we always put on this jersey to represent you because we know how much you love this team, the game of basketball and your family. … Thanks to you, we always come back, coach. Thanks to you we will be back. Never forget that.”

There is no one like it @DianaTaurasi pic.twitter.com/3EPBBT0fRu

— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) November 21, 2024

During the four speeches, Auriemma stood next to the other players, moving back and forth. His former players banded together to give Auriemma – the non-sentimentalist – a taste of his own medicine.

As much as the win total says about Auriemma and what he accomplished at UConn, perhaps this number is most telling: 63. Sixty-three of his former players came from all over the country and stood shoulder to shoulder, stretching across an entire baseline, to celebrate a coach who has had an impact on them and to whom they have given back.

(Photo: Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)