Geno Auriemma is on a mission this season as he approaches the later stages of his coaching career. The UConn head coach has already brought home 11 titles to Storrs, and despite recent injury challenges, the women’s basketball team is eager to make another strong run this season. However, just before Auriemma made history as the winningest coach in college basketball, there were some behind-the-scenes issues.
In a recent YouTube video, ESPN’s Elle Duncan, who interviewed Auriemma following the Huskies’ decisive 85-41 victory over Fairleigh Dickinson University at home, shared an interesting story about her experience that evening. As she prepared to start the broadcast, she exclaimed, “Ten seconds before we go live on air – I’m opening the show by the way – ten seconds before we go live on air, I lose my return.”
Duncan explained further, “Return is a monitor that shows you what’s being broadcast. It’s what you guys are seeing at home; it allows us to be able to talk over b-roll, talk over highlights. It’s quite literally our eyes…so I lose that and then I lose my ears, which means I can’t hear anything.” Despite these challenges, it was a night to remember as Auriemma achieved a remarkable milestone, leading college basketball with a total of 1,217 victories across both men’s and women’s divisions.
Fortunately, “We have contingency plans for situations like this. I have a field producer with me who communicates with the control room over the phone. He started to hard count me and provided direction from the sidelines,” Duncan explained. “It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but that’s the nature of live TV. We lost communication, and my IFB was down the entire time, making it difficult to hear what was happening. Nevertheless, it was an excellent show overall.”
And it truly was an exceptional show, as the Paige Bueckers-led team energized Gampel Pavilion with enthusiastic cheers. An impressive 63 Huskies were present courtside to support their former coach, including stars like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Aaliyah Edwards, Rebecca Lobo, Maya Moore, and Napheesa Collier, all there to witness the Hall of Famer achieve a historic milestone in college basketball.
Although Geno Auriemma never formally wrote out a plan upon joining the team, his approach has remained consistent for 40 years.
Geno Auriemma’s ‘tough’ coaching style often made Diana Taurasi consider skipping practice. You don’t accumulate 11 championships and 23 Final Four appearances without dedication, especially in college basketball. As Rebecca Lobo noted in her speech honoring her former coach, what Auriemma has accomplished is unlikely to be repeated. But those 1,217 wins came with hard work.
“We never really sat down and said, ‘Let’s create a 40-year plan and see if we can achieve this,’” the 70-year-old coach remarked, according to the Associated Press. “It’s about showing up every day and striving to improve on what we did yesterday.”
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