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Geno Auriemma Notes Impact of Anger on Players in UConn Coach Chat With Dan Hurley

UConn Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma addressed what getting angry at players does when speaking with UConn Huskies head coach Dan Hurley.
Grant Young|
Dec 3, 2024; Storrs, Connecticut, USA; UConn Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma watches from the sideline as they take on the Holy Cross Crusaders at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-Imagn Images
Dec 3, 2024; Storrs, Connecticut, USA; UConn Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma watches from the sideline as they take on the Holy Cross Crusaders at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-Imagn Images | David Butler II-Imagn Images

The University of Connecticut has two of the world's best college basketball head coaches. For the men's team, this is Dan Hurley, who is a two-time defending national champion. And for the women's team, this is Geno Auriemma, who has won 11 national championships across his 40 seasons running UConn's women's program.

No other college can match this head basketball coaching pedigree. And it's hard to imagine that another coaching duo can match the wisdom and expertise that Auriemma and Hurley collectively convey.

This is why it was awesome to see these two coaching icons speaking together in a roundtable conversation as part of UConn's 'Legendary Basketball' show, which was posted on their YouTube channel.

At one point in the conversation, Auriemma got honest about the impact that his getting angry has on his players.

"The way we act has a huge impact on our players. They're so impressionable because they look at you different than they may have looked at you five years ago," Auriemma said. "So now if you're like killing a kid, and you're telling them that they stink, they don't want to fight you a lot of times. They want to just crawl in a hole because a guy that they really admire and look up to just told them that they're horrible.

"I found out that when I'm on the sideline now, the angrier I get, the more animated I get, if I overdo it, it has a negative impact on my team," Auriemma added to Hurley. "Took me a while to realize that."

He later said, "You've got to be a certain way in practice. I think we should stop calling it practice, because other people that do what we do, they call it training. Because what we're doing is we're training our players' minds and their bodies to be a certain way when game times comes.

"And then the actual training of it [is] way different than in the game, where [the players] just [want to] feel like you have their back and that you'll be there for them when they'll need you," Auriemma concluded.

Those are powerful words of wisdom from one basketball coaching legend to the next.

Published
Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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