University of Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball head coach Geno Auriemma is one of the winningest coaches in the history of sports.
All sports!
The 72-year-old icon holds the record for the most NCAA Division I basketball championships with 12 national titles, capturing his first in 1995 and his most recent three decades later, in 2025.
Auriemma spoke exclusively with the AmNews about the new documentary, “The Dynasty: UConn Huskies,” a three-part series that premiered on Apple TV on August 21, and why it was the right time to uninhibitedly tell the story of his success — not just as a basketball coach, but in helping shape the lives of players who have had Hall of Fame careers and an indelible imprint on business, social justice, culture, education, and many other aspects of American society.
“It was a good time to look back on the 40 years,” Auriemma said of his tenure, which began on May 17, 1985.
“It was the opportune time because people were interested in doing a project like this. We had been through a lot as a program with some injuries the last three or four years before that, so it just seemed like the right time to do it.”
The documentary begins with the recruitment of former UConn and New York Liberty player and current ESPN WNBA analyst Rebecca Lobo and culminates with the 2025 championship. The Huskies were eliminated in the semifinals by South Carolina in last year’s Final Four.
Auriemma, who at 7 years old emigrated with his family from Montella, Italy, to Norristown, Pennsylvania, began his coaching career in 1977 in humble fashion as the assistant varsity coach and head junior varsity coach at Bishop McDevitt High School in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania.
Decades later at UConn, he would lead all-time greats such as Maya Moore, who would play her last professional game in the 2018 WNBA playoffs at the age of 29 and officially retire in January of 2023 as arguably the best women’s player ever to pursue a higher calling.
“[Maya Moore’s] social awareness beyond basketball and using basketball as a platform to get her message across by walking away from a game that she loved for something bigger. …When I look at it, I’m glad and proud that their growth through the program of learning how to handle tough situations, how to be resilient, how to be mentally tough, how to be well organized enough to put something together, that’s lasting,” he shared.
Now 37, Moore, a former NCAA, WNBA, and Olympic champion, left basketball to combat social justice issues, leading to the overturning of the wrongful conviction of Jonathan Irons, whom she later married. The couple has one son.
“Stewie (New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart) and (Minnesota Lynx star) Napheesa (Collier) being involved in Unrivaled (as founders of the three-on-three women’s league) and Renee (Montgomery) being involved in the ownership group of Atlanta (as co-owner and the Vice President of the WNBA franchise) — the great things that they have accomplished beyond UConn, I think speaks to their love for the game. I’m just really, really proud of all my players with the impact they’ve had in so many areas since graduation.”
Stewart had one of the most memorable and lighthearted quotes of the series.
“I miss the four years that I was at UConn but I don’t wish to go back,” she expressed.
“I think that building teams, pushing people to reach their limits, seeing how people handle adversity, all these things that you are going to see, those are lessons that carry over into any endeavor that you are choosing to be a part of, not just basketball, not just sports,” the nine-time Associated Press (AP) Coach of the Year noted as some of the reasons reasons non-sports fans will find the documentary inspiring and instructional.
The post Geno Auriemma gets personal about UConn tenure in Apple TV doc appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
