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On a night for Geno, he turns the spotlight on everyone else

While Auriemma became college basketball's all-time wins leader on Wednesday night, he wanted the spotlight to be on everyone who helped him get there.

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Daniel Connolly
November 21, 2024

Photo: Ian Bethune

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On a night for Geno, he turns the spotlight on everyone else

Geno Auriemma doesn’t plan to reflect on the significance of what he accomplished on Wednesday anytime soon. Even though he became the winningest coach in college basketball history by beating Fairleigh Dickinson for his with 1,217 career victories on a night that had 63 program alumni in the house, confetti and dollar bills dropped from the rafters, and a goat — a genuine, live goat — Auriemma had more pressing concerns.

“We have practice tomorrow,” he said. “So that’s where we are.”

Instead, he’ll look back sometime after the campaign ends — ideally with another national championship in tow.

“I'm sure when this season's over, I'll be able to look back on it and think about it and see where it all fits,” Auriemma said.

Yet while the coach tried to stay focused on basketball, everyone else’s attention was anywhere but. Gampel Pavilion was decked out in red — honoring Auriemma and associate head coach Chris Dailey’s 40th year in Storrs, or ruby anniversary — with red t-shirts that featured the pair on every seat and red accent lighting.

Before tip-off, the two coaches were given trophies with a glass-blown red basketballs atop a glass basket to commemorate the 40-season mark. Through the contest, video messages from alumni who couldn’t make it to Storrs were shown during timeouts. As the final seconds ticked down, the student section held up cards that spelled out 1217 — Auriemma’s record-setting win total.

The real festivities didn’t begin until the buzzer sounded, though. The alumni joined the current team on the court and they all donned black shirts with Auriemma’s face that read “There’s a thin line between love and great” from Nike. Streamers fell from up high.

At one point, the coach invited four students with “GENO” painted on each of their chests to come out on the court and he enthusiastically greeting them with high-fives before remarking “alright, get out, get out” and gesturing them back to the stands with a thumb.

In the locker room, the players all donned blonde bob wigs in honor of Dailey. How’d she react to that?

"She said we ate but we didn't eat as hard as she does,” Bueckers, perhaps an unreliable narrator, said.

There was plenty of sentimentality, too. Sue Bird, Maya Moore, Rebecca Lobo and Diana Taurasi all took the microphone to speak about what Auriemma, Dailey and the UConn program meant to them.

“I’m gonna get mushy, just warning you,” Bird said.

Everyone else followed her lead.

The legendary point guard opened by explaining how the pair never worked for the awards, accolades and attention. They just wanted everyone to get better each day — even if that meant the team would leave practice for vent sessions in their dorms or at Ted’s, the on-campus bar.

Moore emphasized how the program is a family with players coming in as kids and leaving as adults thanks to the tutelage of Auriemma, Dailey and the assistant coaches. Lobo connected all the players who won the games with the fans who watched them by a thread through all 1,217 victories.

Taurasi capped it off succinctly.

“What can you say about Coach and CD that hasn’t been said before? The good, the bad and frankly the stuff that you don’t want to hear when you get here,” she said.

Auriemma was presented with a mini highway sign from Connecticut governor Ned Lamont that read: "Welcome to Connecticut, home of the winningest coach in college basketball history: Geno Auriemma", a commemorative ladder from Nike, a framed jersey with “1,217” across the front and entry to the international order of old goats.

But none of it was nearly as meaningful as hearing his former players talk about how their time at UConn changed them for the better.

“I'm not that much different than a high school teacher, high school coach, that has a huge impact on on kids, you know? I know I had that when I was in high school with my coach,” Auriemma said. “We got into this business because we wanted to have that impact and to see that we have had that impact is really — that's extremely gratifying to me.”

The feeling went both ways, too. As he spoke about how the players have changed his life, he couldn’t help but get choked up.

"I don't know how much I helped them get what they wanted, but they helped me get everything I wanted. So thank you,” he said.

Everything about Wednesday night was centered around Auriemma (and Dailey). Yet on the night the coach — who already established himself as the greatest in the history of the sport — claimed the wins record, he did all he could to shift the spotlight onto everyone other than himself.

“I'm happy for them (the players, past and present). I’m thrilled because they're gonna have a story that they're gonna tell,” he added later. “Whether they had a whole chapter because of who they were or they just had one page or whether they have one line in the story of UConn women’s basketball, they all have a piece of it. And that makes me feel really, really, really good.”

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Paige Bueckers: Confirmed good.

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