Advertisement

Geno Auriemma, most fascinating guy in sports

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The game was pretty awful. Louisville was never going to have a chance against Connecticut in the women’s NCAA national championship game Tuesday night, but, goodness, listening to Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma after the game was way worth watching. ESPNews played the entire session and it’s transcribed here. I don’t know if I’d have ever wanted to play for Auriemma. The man has demons and his media sessions are like unfiltered days at a psychiatrist’s office in ways both wildly interesting and mildly disturbing.

He speaks about being ‘honest to God ... ill’ before most games this season and how he really won’t enjoy this national title any more than any of his others because he needs to start scheming for the next. My husband, once a high school coach in baseball and football, says he thinks there’s only a handful of players in the country talented enough both mentally and physically to handle Auriemma and somehow he finds them all. But spending a season following Auriemma around, if you had full access and the ability to just watch, record and process, wow, what a book or documentary that could be.

Advertisement

Oh, and it’s interesting to see what Auriemma says about how any school in a BCS conference, if it really wants to, can pretty quickly have a women’s team in the Final Four. How about it, USC and UCLA?

-- Diane Pucin

Advertisement