STORRS, Conn. — From a fluorescent-lit hospital room, Geno Auriemma tracked his team from his phone. The Hall of Fame coach – with 11 national titles, eight coach of the year awards and more games won than almost anyone who has ever set foot on a sideline – was waiting for a box score to update minute by minute. Shorthanded as ever in that 2022-23 season, defeated that Sunday afternoon. This was the machine he built over his four-decade career. Even without him, his players were OK.
To him, she was still the 30-year-old who had boarded a ship in Italy with a 7-year-old Geno and his two younger siblings in 1961 and sailed for 13 days across the Atlantic. The woman who worked from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day at the rug factory in Norristown, braiding fibers until her fingers cramped. The mother who never complained and was always sharp. Who never attended a day of school, but was the smartest person Geno knew.