When the camera cuts, the interview isn’t over. With “Cut for Time,” TODAY.com asks the questions our anchors couldn’t get to on air.
Geno Auriemma had zero interest in coaching women’s basketball when he began coaching women’s basketball more than five decades ago.
“Who the hell would coach girls?” Auriemma snapped when a buddy asked him to be an assistant coach on a girls high school basketball team, before eventually agreeing, “Screw it, I’ll go.”
And there you have the origin story of the all-time most winningest coach in all of college basketball history.
Along with winning an unprecedented 12 NCAA championships, Auriemma has led the USA Basketball Women’s National Team to back-to-back Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016, respectively, has been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the FIBA Hall of Fame and, well, you get the drift.
Those are some pretty big shoes to fill, even for the guy who wears them, which is what Apple TV’s “The Dynasty: UConn Huskies” uncovers over the course of the three-part series, out Aug. 21.
The documentary also offers an unflinching, and sometimes unflattering, glimpse into what it takes to cultivate one of the biggest basketball dynasties in the world, starting with Auriemma’s fairy-tale success with the then small-town Huskies to the challenges of staying on top more than 30 years later.
Known for his larger-than-life personality, a quiet, introspective Auriemma speaks with TODAY.com in Studio 1A’s backstage Orange Room to unpack the documentary and what he reveals just might surprise you.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Yes, I think there’s a lot of truth to that. No one, I don’t think, sets out to … “Hey, I’m going to be a Hall of Fame writer,” or “Hey, I’m going to be a Hall of Fame coach, I’m going to be a Hall of Fame anything.”
They just start out, “I think I could be pretty good at this and let me see where it takes me.” Next thing you know, you look up and people are saying all these amazing things about you. And you do start to think, “Do you really deserve all that?” Because your part is not as big as the kids that were actually playing, scoring … you know, doing.
The hardest thing I think … I think of it that way, is — could you go back and do it again? And I don’t think I could. I don’t think I could.
I don’t know. Because it’s so improbable. If it wasn’t that unique, if it wasn’t that off-the-charts crazy, like, why hasn’t anybody else even come close to doing it?
That’s probably a good way to describe it. You do get hooked on the adrenaline of it it. You want that rush that comes from seeing something that you work so hard for come to fruition.
When you’re away from it, it’s really a relief to not have to deal with the pressure of having to perform at that level. But after you’re away from it a little bit, you kind of miss the being under the pressure, because the pressure makes you get up in the morning like, “Oh my God, I’ve got to do this today,” as opposed to, “What am I going to do today?”
