Geno Auriemma

Geno Auriemma, born in 1954, women’s college basketball coach, who won five national championships at the University of Connecticut from 1995 to 2004. Auriemma has twice coached Connecticut to undefeated seasons and has produced one of the top winning percentages in all of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball.

Geno Auriemma was born in Montella, Italy. He moved to the United States with his family when he was seven years old. Auriemma grew up in Pennsylvania and graduated from West Chester University there in 1981. In the early 1980s he served as an assistant women’s basketball coach at St. Joseph’s University and the University of Virginia.

In 1985 Auriemma was hired to head the struggling women’s basketball program at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. After one losing season he gradually built a winning program, taking the Huskies to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 1989. Two years later Auriemma coached Connecticut to the tournament’s Final Four, where the Huskies lost in the semifinals. In 1995 Connecticut went 35-0 and won the NCAA title. The Huskies were only the second team in NCAA women’s basketball (Division I) to record an unbeaten season, after the University of Texas accomplished the feat in 1986.

Auriemma guided Connecticut to a second national title in 2000, then lost in the Final Four the following year. The Huskies went unbeaten again in 2002 (39-0) and won another championship. Auriemma’s team then repeated their triumph in 2003 and 2004, becoming only the second women’s program to win three consecutive NCAA championships (the University of Tennessee captured three straight titles from 1996 to 1998). During this stretch he led the Huskies to an NCAA-record 70 consecutive wins.

Auriemma also served as an assistant coach on the United States women’s basketball team at the 2000 Olympics, where the Americans won the gold medal. The recipient of numerous coach of the year awards, Auriemma has coached a number of national college players of the year, including Rebecca Lobo (1995), Jennifer Rizzoti (1996), Kara Wolters (1997), Sue Bird (2002), and Diana Taurasi (2003 and 2004).

In 2005 Auriemma was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. The following year he was selected for the Basketball Hall of Fame.