Source: The Athletic
By Chantell Jennings
Part 1
STORRS, Conn. — A few years ago, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma returned to his hometown of Montella, Italy, for the first time in years. He was on vacation elsewhere in the country, but a cousin reached out and invited him to a relative’s wedding. The ceremony, he discovered, would be in the same church where he attended kindergarten six decades earlier, so he decided to extend his trip an extra few days.
As a child, Auriemma walked to kindergarten every day, stopping at a field where locals had erected a basketball hoop and created a soccer field. Years later, Auriemma’s mother, Marsiella, often told how that was the first time he saw a basketball hoop.
On his trip six decades later, Auriemma retraced his footsteps from his childhood home to the church. He stopped at the field to take in the view. The basketball hoop and soccer field were long gone. There are more houses now — with running water and electricity, unlike his home as a boy. He’s the oldest living person in his immediate family, the last one who remembers this place clearly.
“We were living in poverty, but we didn’t know it was poverty,” Auriemma said. “As a kid, I thought, ‘Why do I need a telephone?’ No one had a telephone. ‘Why do I need money?’ Nobody had money. ‘Why do I need running water? Why do we need electricity? Everybody helps everybody else get by.’”
Over the years, several earthquakes have ripped through this area, but the people have always rebuilt. Even the tremors couldn’t destroy the belief that the new structures would stand, even if everyone understood that everything could be gone in an instant.
“Obviously, it has changed,” Auriemma, 70, says. “But it’s still kind of the same.”
Such is true for Montella but also for Auriemma.
If there’s a theme to his coaching and an explanation for how he has arrived at this pinnacle, it’s this: He’s a self-described optimist with a worst-case-scenario plan if anything and everything goes south. He has a memory like an elephant, which means his past is never far from his mind.
That mentality has driven Auriemma to this point — one win away from becoming the winningest basketball coach of all time.
By Chantell Jennings
Part 1
STORRS, Conn. — A few years ago, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma returned to his hometown of Montella, Italy, for the first time in years. He was on vacation elsewhere in the country, but a cousin reached out and invited him to a relative’s wedding. The ceremony, he discovered, would be in the same church where he attended kindergarten six decades earlier, so he decided to extend his trip an extra few days.
As a child, Auriemma walked to kindergarten every day, stopping at a field where locals had erected a basketball hoop and created a soccer field. Years later, Auriemma’s mother, Marsiella, often told how that was the first time he saw a basketball hoop.
On his trip six decades later, Auriemma retraced his footsteps from his childhood home to the church. He stopped at the field to take in the view. The basketball hoop and soccer field were long gone. There are more houses now — with running water and electricity, unlike his home as a boy. He’s the oldest living person in his immediate family, the last one who remembers this place clearly.
“We were living in poverty, but we didn’t know it was poverty,” Auriemma said. “As a kid, I thought, ‘Why do I need a telephone?’ No one had a telephone. ‘Why do I need money?’ Nobody had money. ‘Why do I need running water? Why do we need electricity? Everybody helps everybody else get by.’”
Over the years, several earthquakes have ripped through this area, but the people have always rebuilt. Even the tremors couldn’t destroy the belief that the new structures would stand, even if everyone understood that everything could be gone in an instant.
“Obviously, it has changed,” Auriemma, 70, says. “But it’s still kind of the same.”
Such is true for Montella but also for Auriemma.
If there’s a theme to his coaching and an explanation for how he has arrived at this pinnacle, it’s this: He’s a self-described optimist with a worst-case-scenario plan if anything and everything goes south. He has a memory like an elephant, which means his past is never far from his mind.
That mentality has driven Auriemma to this point — one win away from becoming the winningest basketball coach of all time.
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