Perspective and a bit of sarcasm from Coach

[Tufkas]

Goodness me, some perspective, and perhaps a bit less ego-centrism.

People arrive on here, to the TV, to streaming, at disparate places in their lives, hence the escape that sports provides carries vastly different viewpoints, contexts, and importance. Especially in this world, with a horrific pandemic isolating folks, disrupting life, responsible for an unfathomable loss of more than one-half million (!) souls.

This in a state without a professional sports team, where the UConn women consistently offer a few hours of positive relief, escape, engagement, whatever. As coach says, people have become accustomed to it. It's dependable, something for some, to look forward to.

Hence, we should not impose our value judgements on the way others personally deal with these results. We've no idea the why, or where. For some, boards such as this offer an outlet for folks to vent, discuss, challenge, and sometimes argue. As long as it's civil, it's the nature of the beast, and it's a privilege, not an entitlement, for any of those desiring to participate. Those of us who've coached at the various levels, enjoy the tactical part of the game, DVR'ing frame-by-frame to break down plays. We'd have pressed. Trapped. Sub'ed. Called time outs. Others watch for the beauty of the sport, could care less about the score (as long as they're winning lol).

Here, the song remains the same: Coach is never wrong. Coach is wrong. Coach is a genius. Coach is an idiot. Coach has a 11 championships, he's in 2 Halls of Fame, obviously knows far more than us, how dare we even think to criticize? Without us, and our tax dollars playing his salary, he's just a guy who owns Italian restaurants.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I personally prefer the John Wooden approach. For all of UCLA's winning, I don't remember like criticism of the fans in Westwood. Or NY Yankee managers from the 30's to 1964 castigating angry fans upon the occasional loss in the World Series, or, perish the though, failure to win an American League pennant. Steinbrenner apologized to the fans after one Fall failure, though the less said of him, the better .

Coach has a different approach. Its tiresome, its silly, perhaps appalling, whatever. Against the sensational talent, the brilliant team-oriented basketball he offers year-after-year, decade after decade, the sheer joy of UConn basketball over those many years, for me, matters not. That it does to others is perfectly reasonable as well.

Horses for courses.

 

[GoUconn7961]

My point is directed at his behavior not the customers.
Maybe expecting him to act like a professional will never be realized.

Are you new here? Geno has always been this way since the day he stepped foot on campus.

 

[GoUconn7961]

I’ll say it again and again.. if he isn’t the Coach, or persona you want him to be there are a LOT of other teams out there with coaches you might like better. Not winning coaches, but coaches that may appeal to your sensibilities. Have at it. You want a winner only if it suits you.

 

[pvdoggy]

hmmm most successful businesses says customers are always right, but what do they know.

The customer is NOT always right. Last year sometimes (I think) there is a story that Costco (a very successful business) sent a letter to one of its customers to say that they don't her business anymore and that they are not the right fit for her standard because she abuses the return merchandise policy. This is somewhere in the Virginia/Maryland area, I think.

 

[arch]

Telling your "customers" the truth is not at all like dumping on them, unless they are the sort of people who demand that their "vendor" tells them lies.

I respect Geno's integrity. If truthtelling and integrity are at odds with someone's notion of customer care, I guess we have a fundamental disagreement.

An adult understands that one need say nothing.
Integrity isn’t the issue. Judgement is the issue.

 

[GoUconn7961]

Again, this is about his behavior, not the customers.

Behavior according to your standards.

 

[ABCDFE]

The customer is NOT always right. Last year sometimes (I think) there is a story that Costco (a very successful business) sent a letter to one of its customers to say that they don't her business anymore and that they are not the right fit for her standard because she abuses the return merchandise policy. This is somewhere in the Virginia/Maryland area, I think.

That doesn’t mean the customer is wrong. It just means Costco admits their policy was used in a way that wasn’t intended. What it does show is that there are really unethical people out there that if you give an inch they take an ell. What Costco has done is refined their return policies, especially on electronics and the time periods of returns. With the help of these few rotten apples is Costco implemented new business practices that actually helped Costco grow the bottom line and in addition they have begun to increase membership fees to offset some of these customer perks. Costco still has amazing return policies that 99% of customers still love but they crack down on the few that abuse it so their customer loyalty is still extremely high amd doesn’t impact their business materially.

I understand your point though.

 

[Centerstream]

My point is directed at his behavior not the customers.
Maybe expecting him to act like a professional will never be realized.

A professional in your eyes, which you are most certainly entitled to. But I am guessing that the majority of BYers here on the WBB forum agree that Geno acts like a professional because he is a professional in what he does: coaching UConn WBB.

 

[Jewels]

IT's always easy from the cheap seats.

Also, it's easy being a spectator.

 

[phil sampieri]

hmmm most successful businesses says customers are always right, but what do they know.

And you have proof that all successful businesses say the customer is always right. That is a saying not a reality

 

[Martin]

A lot of fans have expectations that will be never be realized. Living up to the standards set by fans isn’t the job of coaches or players.

Nan, Geno created the expectations by winning so many banners.

 

[jdb50]

Who was the one complaining about the bracket and having to possibly meet Baylor in the elite 8? And how good they were? And now trying to say it was outsiders/fans that hyped up the matchup? Why does the woman's basketball coach at UConn call his players guys? Not players or women but guys? It's not cute anymore. Geno wants to win more than fans do. Fine. But in his wanting to win he does not play bench players who may be able to rest the 6 he does "trust" so at the end of the year in high pressure games the players he does trust are not worn down and wind up making mistakes that result in a loss. The having to be perfect mantra comes from the top. UConn fans can criticize the coach. That is the deal with being a fan of a team or school. With the talent Geno recruits he should make the Final 4 most years. Geno is expressing his own frustrations right now.

 

[diggerfoot]

Comparing a coach to a salesperson, or even a business person, is seriously flawed. A more apt comparison is to a teacher. A teacher’s main obligation is to students. Teachers strive to help their “customer” students the best way that fits them. It’s then up to the principal or superintendent to determine if the teacher’s methods and comportment fits with their vision of how classrooms should be run, just like it’s up to the AD to make judgements on how sports programs should be run. As far as the broadest reach of purpose goes, including the fit with the community (or the fans/alumni/donors) that is up to the Board of Ed or Board of Trustees respectively.

Auriemma owes fans nothing; he owes the players he “teaches.” It just so happens that he draws fans and donors to the University, enough so that the higher ups have had no beef to date with his methods or comportment. If any fan is indignant about that, their ire is more appropriately placed with the higher ups that thinks such a “trade off” is fine, similar to a community taking up matters with a Board of Ed.

Not everything fits metaphorically into a business model of the world.

 

[cbraarj]

It's basketball and believe or not talking trash comes with it. No matter if you're a coach, player or fan. It's Genos team and he has the right to call his players out and also the fans. Geno refers to his players as guys and doesn't like to use Lady Huskies and why? Because they are basketball players and that's what he considers them as. Also to many people here consider and want to treat these players like they're your daughters and Grandaughters. Guess what? They aren't! To much whining on this topic all the time. It's ridiculous.

 

[Woof 101]

My point is directed at his behavior not the customers.
Maybe expecting him to act like a professional will never be realized.

According to your sign in date you have been following for at least 10 years. Geno has not changed a bit in 36 years and will not anytime soon. To say he is not a professional is simply silly and exposes ones knowledge of the game and program. You and a few others may not like his MO but being the most successful coach in the history of the game speaks for itself.

So is Geno addressing his dissertation to the 5% or less who hold the views he is condemning? Or is he scolding us all? What is accomplished by laying this stuff out to the public?

Rocky you old respected MTblue guy, Geno is simply venting towards the not so knowledgeable. It has to get tiring getting emails every day from Monday morning head coaches. He vents just like anyone else would but with a better touch of snark!
It is not aimed at true fans or those that understand the game.
See exhibit A above.

 

[RedStickHusky]

So, some people are re-offended because he took offense to their taking offense to his lack of offense? What could be more 21st century. As to HuskyNan's well made point, where else do fans get to have expectations? Hopes, dreams, aspirations, wishes... sure. Expectations? You're spoiled. Fanhood has transitioned from wishing success for the kids working hard to represent hometown State U. to demanding those kids deliver the vicarious, unearned gratification I expect to gain through their efforts. Straight up entitlement.

 

[RedStickHusky]

 

[Littlemin]

I think all anyone needs to see is the video of Auriemma returning from quarantine; that speaks volumes of the way the players feel about him. He uses any means available, including the media, to communicate with those players.
Just my opinion, but too many here want to bisect and dissect every comment of a guy that has been the same way for decades when one only has to look at the love and respect he has mutually with virtually every player he has ever coached. One has only to look at the success in and out of basketball many of those players have had after leaving.
The proof is in the pudding, recipes be damned. He and Chris Dailey have created something that may never be equaled in sports, doing it their way. They obviously put serious effort in developing the young ladies in their charge as players AND people.
The only downside I can see is the dynasty has spawned a legion of spoiled, petulant fans that whine and moan and offer sophomoric advice with every loss, every win where the margin of victory does not satisfy them, and every player that does not get enough minutes to suit their tastes.
And that does not mean that all Uconn WBB fans get painted with that brush, very far from it.

 

[HuskyNan]

Nan, Geno created the expectations by winning so many banners.

No person can make you feel any emotion or force you to expect anything. Those are self-derived. Anyone that thinks differently is excusing themselves from responsibility.

I can’t claim that certain posts “make” me angry or irritated or anything else. I get to choose how I react - with amusement, with anger, or not at all. Each one of us is responsible for our own reactions.

 

[kteach]

I would love to see the video of this whole interview. I feel that is the only way to better gauge Geno's meaning behind these words. I have watched a lot of his pressers, especially this season and felt completely different about what he said live versus what was printed in an article. For example, the "uncoachable" comment about Christyn and some of the things he said about Paige. If you print just the words, it seems harsh, but if you watch how he says things, it doesn't come across that way, (at least how I reacted to them). Remember, writers need people to click, or react to what they've written. There certainly seems to be some talk about this article!

 

[Twolf]

I think all anyone needs to see is the video of Auriemma returning from quarantine; that speaks volumes of the way the players feel about him. He uses any means available, including the media, to communicate with those players.
Just my opinion, but too many here want to bisect and dissect every comment of a guy that has been the same way for decades when one only has to look at the love and respect he has mutually with virtually every player he has ever coached. One has only to look at the success in and out of basketball many of those players have had after leaving.
The proof is in the pudding, recipes be damned. He and Chris Dailey have created something that may never be equaled in sports, doing it their way. They obviously put serious effort in developing the young ladies in their charge as players AND people.
The only downside I can see is the dynasty has spawned a legion of spoiled, petulant fans that whine and moan and offer sophomoric advice with every loss, every win where the margin of victory does not satisfy them, and every player that does not get enough minutes to suit their tastes.
And that does not mean that all Uconn WBB fans get painted with that brush, very far from it.

Very good post, and an accurate account of why most coaches only care about the opinions of two groups of people: their players and their peers. The people who want to tell this staff to change their offense, who should be getting more minutes, or how flawed their game plan was without ever seeing a practice, breaking down film, or just observing the athletes both on and off the floor for hours on a daily basis don’t seem to understand all that goes into each of the above.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but the people who want to tell this staff how to coach basketball should try going down to the local mortuary and telling them they’re embalming people the wrong way and they are going to fix that, or going to the local bank President and telling them their bond portfolio isn’t laddered properly, and they are there to offer their expertise. They are doing the same thing here, but for some reason don’t look at it in the same vein. JMO

 

[RedStickHusky]

The fact that some of us can conflate 'fan' with 'customer' says a lot.

 

[huskiemaniac]

Man I love this soap opera. 🍿🍿🍿

 

[RockyMTblue2]

According to your sign in date you have been following for at least 10 years. Geno has not changed a bit in 36 years and will not anytime soon. To say he is not a professional is simply silly and exposes ones knowledge of the game and program. You and a few others may not like his MO but being the most successful coach in the history of the game speaks for itself.


Rocky you old respected MTblue guy, Geno is simply venting towards the not so knowledgeable. It has to get tiring getting emails every day from Monday morning head coaches. He vents just like anyone else would but with a better touch of snark!
It is not aimed at true fans or those that understand the game.
See exhibit A above.

He should do himself a favor and assign an intern to strain the idiots out of his e-mail.

 

[PAHuskeyFan]

Back in the day... I coached Youth Baseball. After one close loss, I had a parent of one of my players tell me all the things he thought I was doing wrong, including not playing his kid enough or in the position he thought he should play. I listened carefully and attentively. I thanked him for his thoughts and asked... "Do you want to do it?" He immediately replied "No way am I doing it ... especially without getting paid." And he walked away.

 

[BostonCanuck]

Like many here, I feel for Geno too. He had a solid game-plan for Arizona, and I can only imagine his frustration with the problems his team had in executing. Heck, he even had a good backup plan for this game. Her name was Aaliyah Edwards.

I'll share a brief story with the board. I was at the game, and had a really good angle into the UConn huddle, especially with my binoculars. After the situation with Liv had become clear, either late in the second or early in the third, the team ran a play for Aaliyah and got her a wide open look from point blank range. She missed the bunny, and right away Geno called a time out. As the players walked towards the chairs set up at courtside, Geno gave her a hard stare-down for a good four seconds, during which she avoided making eye contact. He waited until she sat down, then immediately waived her out of the chair (indicating a substitution).

It was a poignant moment that stuck with me, as it expressed his exasperation better than even his words in this interview. Despite that, he refuses to throw individual players or the team as a whole under the bus with his comments, even if some of the fan base does not escape quite so unscathed. I'd rather it be that way.

 

[The CDR-Ret]

"My kids are devastated,” Auriemma said. “My kids just put in 12 months of hard work, sacrificed everything. The whole COVID thing, they haven’t been home since July 26. ... My guys put blood, sweat and tears into this. You don’t think we want this more than you do? That’s the thing that a lot of fans can’t wrap their heads around. We win all the time and they go, ‘You have no competition.’ We lose and they go, ‘You can’t win because you [stink]. So you want it to be competitive, but you don’t want us to lose.”

'We want to win more than you want us to win': UConn's Geno Auriemma opens up about latest Final Four loss​

I am sure they want to win more than anything on the planet. The only thing Geno is wrong is that I DON'T want it to be competitive. I love 50 point wins, and the closest it ishappens at the start of the game 0-0, and being able to track opponents leading time in seconds for the entire year. I am cool with a 30 point win in the National Championship game by the Huskies with only a one point defecit at half-time, so they can say that they "stayed with them in the first half...."

I know that was not possible in the past 5 years, but may be possible against everyone not named Stanford and South Carolina in the next one to two years, and then names of other teams don't matter in years three and four from now....

Go HUSKIES!!!

 

[The CDR-Ret]

“We could save you a lot of problems and just lose in the first round,” Auriemma said. “Then you won’t have so much angst. But you know what, we’re going to punish you, we’re going to be just good enough to torment you... We’re going to torture you. How’s that?”

Unfortunately, a lot of this is Geno at his absolute worst, with the fan shaming and such that he's been falling back on these past four or five years, I guess to deflect from these dreadful losses.

"As well as Arizona played, had we just done a little more of what we were accustomed to doing, we would have won the game."

Correct, Geno. And as you know, it's your job as head coach, to get them to do what they are accustomed to doing in a national semi-final like they do in any other game. And to get them to do it even though, yes, the competition is tougher in those games. For three of those four years, you had the better team and the better players on the floor. And each time they lost in pretty much the same manner, with similar game plans deployed against them, while being unable to perform at their own baseline level of proficiency. It must feel like groundhog day for you, coach. So how about you figure out what keeps going wrong, and then go fix it? And while you're at it, you may want to consider showing a little less distain for the fans out there, spoiled as some of us indeed are.

John Wooden went through the same "inflated expectations" problem went in the midst of his huge run at UCLA, which made him retire at his last NCAA chapionship presentation ceremony after announcing it before the game to his players.

The women are still people, and people do not perform at their highest level 100% of the time, and sometimes opponents all have their best performances all at the same time {Arkansas & Arizona come to mind}. Most times you can learn more from a loss, than from accidentally winning. It helps to focus attention, and "stop believing your own press clippings."

Some teams did not need a loss to learn the lesson that the coaching staff knows more about winning than the "good enough - we won" mentality of some (extremely talented) players.

This was the focus of my submarine training, as second place in submarine warefare is at the bottom of the ocean, and not coming back... You have to learn from other's misfortune, as you do not have the ability to learn from your own losses, because you are no longer in the fight. The time you have to learn in the presence of people who have "been there" multiple times is precious and needs to be learned at maximum rate, and non-positive attitudes need to be left at the door.

The first step in being a positive fan is to take a deep breath, let it out and keep breathing. IT is in the past, learn from it and leave it in the past. Time to start building up again. Stop tearing down. Be kind to others, it may be your last time with them - make it a positive experience for them, if not you.

 

[The CDR-Ret]

Which is why those who observe people for a living say that 90% of the message communicated is in the body language and facial expression. Text messaging and newspapers catch none of that "90%" and hence the mismatch.

One of my favorite instructors in the military was a brilliant LT (prior enlisted sailor) who was a riverine boat mechanic in 'Nam said, "Don't believe anything you hear, and half of what you see." You did not see or hear what happened leading up to it [what you saw or heard]. Nothing gives full meaning without context....

 

[Littlemin]

Back in the day... I coached Youth Baseball. After one close loss, I had a parent of one of my players tell me all the things he thought I was doing wrong, including not playing his kid enough or in the position he thought he should play. I listened carefully and attentively. I thanked him for his thoughts and asked... "Do you want to do it?" He immediately replied "No way am I doing it ... especially without getting paid." And he walked away.

I coached my daughter in travel softball and son in AAU basketball; I would love to have a dollar for every time I challenged a parent to come out of the stands and coach. Couldn’t do it when coaching in high school though.