Geno Auriemma says he is not retiring while discussing UConn dynasty and new docuseries

Geno Auriemma told the Guardian last week he is not retiring in the "foreseeable future" while discussing the University of Connecticut's basketball dynasty and Apple TV's three-part docuseries, The Dynasty: UConn Huskies, which premieres on Friday. He spoke about the program's 40-year history, his relationship with Paige Bueckers and the rivalry with Pat Summitt.

Auriemma traced his coaching path from Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, to an assistant role at the University of Virginia by 1981 and then to the UConn head coaching job in 1985. He said he was competing against many highly qualified women for the UConn position, including Chris Dailey, who has coached alongside him for more than 40 years. Auriemma and UConn have been closely identified with one another for decades, a theme explored in the new three-part series.

Auriemma took part fully in the documentary and appears in a range of moods on screen; he dismissed the idea that the film was made because his time at UConn is ending. "I don’t know [why we did it]," Auriemma tells the Guardian. "It came along. I think maybe the fact that it was Paige’s senior year, there were a lot of things that happened in the three or four years before that that we had to try to overcome. The timing was right. The interest was right. And no one knew at the beginning, ‘Hey, if you do it this year, you’re going to follow us and win the national championship’. Nobody knew that." The Huskies did win the national championship that season and finished 37-3.

Auriemma conceded the series cannot capture every element of four decades but defended its scope. "I don’t know that we could give a full 100% picture of the whole 40 years, you know, taking in stretches," he says. "But I think it gives a pretty clear picture of what we do, who we are, what we value, what we stand for, how hard we work, how committed we are. So in that respect, I think it was pretty on point." He said Chris Dailey is integral to the program: "I think that if you’re here on a regular basis, or if you watch us, everything that we do, Chris is a huge part of everything that we do. Is it possible to do what we’ve done without her input? No, I don’t think so."

The Huskies' on-court résumé that Auriemma referenced includes 12 NCAA Division I national championships, more than 50 conference and regular-season titles, and the longest winning streak in men’s or women’s college basketball history. More than 50 former Huskies have played in the WNBA and, as of May, 17 were on active rosters. The program's alumni cited in the series include Rebecca Lobo, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Napheesa Collier, Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart, Swin Cash, Tina Charles, Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd.

Auriemma expressed particular admiration for Paige Bueckers and described an evolving relationship between them; he said they still speak weekly. Bueckers spoke to reporters about how she’s grown as a leader while at All-Star Weekend in Chicago last month, and Auriemma called leadership "one of the big struggles we had." He recalled asking her, 'What kind of leader do you want to be?' and said, "Paige was the best player in the country as a freshman, won every award. And she thought, ‘Well, people will just follow my example.’ Well, that’s one kind of leadership, but there’s [also] a leadership where you have to own it. You have to own what they do, too."

On the subject of confrontation and development he said, "Today’s kids, I think, are very non-confrontational in a lot of ways," and continued, "So I always kept telling her, ‘Paige, you either do this now and we get some results or in March, we’re going to lose again in the Final Four and you’re going to wish you did.' "So I don’t know what happened, but eventually in her senior year, she got there. And I told her, ‘You’re not going to be able to walk into a WNBA training camp. They’re going to hand you the ball and say, you’re our starting point guard and you’re going to look around and you’re going to go, OK, well, I’m not ready to lead this team. You’re not going to have a choice.’" Auriemma said Bueckers has "found her voice," adding: "she knows when to use it, how to use it. She still has a ways to go and some things that we talk about it every week. There isn’t a week that goes by that we don’t talk about how she’s feeling physically, mentally, emotionally, how you’re handling all this. And I’m proud of her."

Reflecting on the program's rivalry with Pat Summitt and Tennessee, Auriemma described how a competitive back-and-forth grew into something more contentious. "I think for the longest time that we [Sumitt and Auriemma] competed against each other, it was great. It was a great rivalry. It was great theater on the court, because there were so many great players playing against each other," he said. "I think at some point, when we started playing each other twice every year, and then we played the NCAA Tournament, so that was three times, I think it got a little bit much." He added, "And things being the way they are always, it unfortunately became Geno versus Pat. Pat and Geno, Geno and Pat, Pat and Geno, blah, blah, blah." He expressed regret that Summitt, who announced her diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2011 and died in 2016 at the age of 64, did not have more time, saying, "I wish that we would have had another 10, 12, 15 years where it would have just been two great teams playing against each other every night, because every one of my players so looked forward to that game."

Auriemma addressed the broader growth of the women’s game and his role within it. "I’m a woman’s basketball coach, right? I coach basketball, and the players that play for me happen to be women, but I would coach a boys team the same way," Auriemma says. "So the longer I’m with this, the longer I’ve been with this, I see the way the game has changed on the court, the way it’s changed off the court, and I see the difference in the way the game has been covered by the media." He recalled early press conferences where young women present were likely from student newspapers or internships and contrasted that with the Final Four now: "And now you look out at the Final Four and with all the new social media outlets, it was just incredible to see a sea of young women who can look around and say, ‘I can do this for a living. I can be what used to be almost exclusively for men only.’ So I’m proud of that. I think that’s something that we’ve done at Connecticut for 40 years: try to empower women, try to get them to believe that anything, anything’s possible."

The Dynasty: UConn Huskies premieres on Friday, and the series' third episode pays particular attention to the season that ended with the Huskies' national championship and a 37-3 record.