“Weird,” Auriemma, Connecticut’s legendary coach, deadpans in bemusement.
Auriemma acknowledges that, once upon a time, he might have leaned into that villain role for a rivalry that boomed with a blur of talent and two iconic coaches.
Now, as a 70-year-old coach past his prime – his words – he’s more indifferent to his casting. And, frankly, this rivalry is past its prime, too. The sport grew. Other powers emerged. TV ratings don’t hinge so much on these blue bloods playing.
If some fans wearing orange for Thursday’s No. 5 UConn vs. No. 17 Tennessee game in Knoxville still see Auriemma as the villain, so be it.
What’s a rivalry without a villain, anyway?
“I just represent what is not necessarily copacetic for the people in Knoxville,” Auriemma told me Monday, “but I think I’m on a long, illustrious list of villains, so I feel pretty good about it.”
Whether Auriemma deserves that label probably depends, in part, on which side of the Tennessee-UConn rivalry you support, but there should be little debate on this: Auriemma’s magnetic, polarizing presence breathes some life into the embers of what once was the greatest rivalry in women’s team sports.
If Lady Vols faithful feel some type of way about Auriemma, he figures that must stem from his 17-9 all-time record against Tennessee, including a 6-3 mark in matchups played in Knoxville. Thirteen of Auriemma’s series wins came against Pat Summitt.
“Because we had the audacity to come in there and win, and win, and win, we become the villains,” Auriemma said.
“Just like whoever the football coach is at Georgia is the villain, or whoever the coach is at Alabama is the villain, or Florida, or any other school that Tennessee has these intense rivalries with, I just think by the nature of the sport and who you are and the success that you’ve had automatically makes you a villain.”
Call him what you like, but, face it, at this stage in the series, Auriemma’s the best thing going for what’s left of the rivalry.
Future of Tennessee-UConn women’s basketball rivalry
Thursday will mark the fifth meeting between these teams in the past six seasons. The Huskies won the previous four games.
The Lady Vols will play at Connecticut next season. That game’s date and location – UConn splits home games between Storrs and Hartford – have not been announced.
After next season, the series enters an undecided future.
Auriemma, on Monday, made neither a strong pitch to continue nor end the series. The Big East, he said, will add two conference games next season, upping the number to 20. That affects non-conference scheduling.
“We’ll have to take a look at, how many SEC schools can we play? Who do we want to start a new series with? How many different conferences can we add to our non-conference schedule?” Auriemma said. “A lot goes into it. And, their coaching staff might decide, ‘Hey, this is not worth it for us, given what our schedule looks like.’”
Geno Auriemma contrasted, complemented Pat Summitt
Competing for ‘king of the mountain.’ That’s how Auriemma describes the rivalry’s prime.
The two heavyweight programs clashed as many as three times in a season in an unmatched collection of talent, each team led by coaches on the Mount Rushmore of women’s basketball coaches.
Summitt and Auriemma were contrasting but complementary forces that fueled a sport. She, a pioneer for women’s sports and gender equity at the vanguard of the Title IX generation and the winner of eight national championships. He, a male interloper in women’s basketball who owns an unmatched 11 national championship rings.
She, the dairy farmer’s daughter turned steely Southern woman who ran her program as a disciplinarian while radiating class and grace. He, an Italian-American immigrant, the son of factory workers, a ruthless winner and a sharp-tongued feather-ruffler.
The rivalry uplifted the sport but challenged the coaches’ relationship, while Auriemma stirred emotions around a Tennessee program he once dubbed the “evil empire.”
Summitt halted the series following their 2007 meeting. The rivalry went dormant until 2020. Summitt later wrote in her book, “Sum It Up,” her decision to stop playing the Huskies stemmed from her becoming upset with UConn’s recruiting methods. Auriemma offered a contrasting viewpoint, telling the Hartford Courant in 2007 that Summitt put the kibosh on the series because “she hates my guts.”
They later mended their relationship. Auriemma became the first coach to donate to the Pat Summitt Foundation to fight Alzheimer’s. Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease caused Summitt to retire in 2012. She died in 2016 at age 64.
Kim Caldwell, 36, now coaches the Lady Vols, their third coach since Summitt and the first not attached to the Summitt coaching tree. She’s instilled a fresh vision, while Auriemma’s Huskies remain a contender on the heels of last year’s Final Four run, but neither program holds the perch it once did.
Auriemma becomes pensive when he considers that most of his contemporaries have either retired or passed away.
“All the experiences that I’ve had, and all that I’ve been through with so many (coaches) – and, certainly, probably none bigger than the rivalry with Pat and with Tennessee – it was a unique time. It was a fun time. It was a stressful time,” Auriemma said. “Every emotion you can imagine was involved in those rivalry games.”
Geno Auriemma: ‘No sneaking past Tennessee’ in rivalry’s heyday
Point Auriemma toward memory lane of the Tennessee-UConn rivalry, and he’s quick to identify his favorite aspect.
“If there were 30 great players in America at the time, 10 of them were on the floor in the Tennessee-Connecticut game all the time. All the time,’ Auriemma said. ‘There was no sneaking past Tennessee.”
And the worst aspect of the rivalry?
“The worst part was when it became personal. It wasn’t Tennessee and Connecticut anymore. It was Geno-Pat. And, that kind of sucked,” Auriemma said. “That part sucked, because it didn’t need to be that. Certainly, our fan base contributed to it. Their fan base contributed to it. I guess that’s just the nature (of a rivalry). What can you do?”
Before this series resumed in 2020, a few former Lady Vols who played for Summitt shared their feelings on the rivalry, including Abby Conklin. She summarized her thoughts on Auriemma thusly.
“I think Geno’s an ass,” Conklin told me then.
Some who will fill the seats in Thompson-Boling Arena on Thursday likely share her opinion.
Auriemma maintains, though, that some folks in Knoxville retain fondness for him, including at a bar that shall go unnamed that he’s known to visit while in town.
“They love me there,” he says. “I’m not a villain everywhere.”
Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.