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Rebecca Lobo, College Basketball and WNBA Analyst
It’s easy to get lost in the numbers.
One thousand two hundred and seventeen wins. Eleven national championships. Twenty-three Final Fours. Six undefeated seasons. One hundred and eleven wins in a row.
Individually, these milestones are unmatched. Collectively, they cannot be duplicated.
UConn’s Geno Auriemma broke the NCAA Division I record for coaching victories in men’s and women’s basketball on Wednesday, winning 85-41 over Fairleigh Dickinson to mark 1,217 and move him past former Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer.
But the number to focus on is 160. That’s how many Huskies have played for coach Geno Auriemma. One hundred and sixty women entered the UConn campus as 18-year-olds and their lives were changed forever.
There is a bond between 160, between players of different generations, even those who have never met. Because we have the experience of a lifetime playing for the best coach in the history of the game. We have been shouting. Forced to cry. We have been pushed to the limits of what we thought possible. We have been told that we are too selfish. Or sometimes, not selfish enough. That we can’t get anything right. We are either “America’s worst post player” (me, etc.) or “America’s dumbest smart guy” (ditto).
Our training is often tough, and every game is open night. “Why did you come here?” Coach Auriemma told me recently. “You don’t go to Broadway and they put you on a show and go, ‘Listen, just try to get a line right now.’ You can do it at Manchester Little Theater Sorry, this is Broadway.
When I watch UConn practice today, I both chuckle about it and feel sorry for the players caught in the coach’s wrath. When he complains to the associate head coach Chris Dailey, or “CD,” about his stupid mistakes, just loud enough for everyone in the court to hear, I think of all the players who have been in the same position over the years.
Through it all, we learn how to win. But it’s not just about winning. Win the right way. We learn to communicate, overcome mental and physical obstacles and put the team first.
We’re taught to say “thank you” after a pregame meal, learn the bus driver’s name and look fans in the eye when signing autographs.
We went to UConn because of the incredible connection we formed during the recruiting process with coaches Auriemma and Dailey. After my mom told her, when we were home, that UConn was a safety school, I followed her down the street and told her that she wouldn’t worry about it, if I knew where the school was going. When I was 16 years old, CD sent me a birthday card and mistakenly wished me a happy 17th birthday. Every year since then, at the beginning of October, I received a card from him wishing me a happy birthday for one year older than my actual age.
Most of us stay because we believe they can make us want to be, even before there is any evidence.
We are national champions and players of the year. Olympians and All-Stars. Walk-ons and role players.
We are also wives and mothers and sisters and friends. During our time in Storrs, we learned how to be the best version of ourselves.
Does Coach Auriemma recruit strong women? Yes, but he helped her too.
UConn women’s basketball alumni Sue Bird and Renee Montgomery are important voices in the fight for social justice. Maya Moore gave up basketball in her major career to focus on criminal justice reform. Swin Cash is an advocate against gun violence.
In many ways, Coach Auriemma and UConn have changed the way basketball is played. Set the standard for what women’s programs can do. Force every other school to raise their level to compete with the teams in the Basketball Capital of the World.
And when they change the way basketball is played, they also change the lives of 160. In many ways, we are what they made us.
When I asked the Coach what the all-time winning record meant for him, he said about his players instead: “For me, it should be celebrated by those (160) players. They should all feel like actors in one of the greatest dramas in the history of the theater .”
Playwrights don’t do it for awards, they don’t need marquee lights. He agrees with Hamlet: “The play is.” But this week we – members of an ever-growing ensemble cast – are standing in the wings, applauding. Coach has gotten a curtain call.
