​Geno Auriemma is the Head Women's Basketball Coach at the University of Connecticut. His teams have won eleven national championship; the most in the history of college basketball.
 
Auriemma's career is inspiring because his path to becoming one of the most knowledgeable and successful coaches in history is a result of his initiative. Nothing was given to him.
 
Auriemma was a backup point guard at Bishop Kenrick High School in Norristown, PA. where he played two seasons for the legendary high school coach Buddy Gardler. Geno had been cut from the freshman team, but a friend convinced Geno he should "Keep Showing Up". He tried out the next year and made the team.
 
It was Buddy Gardler who first inspired Auriemma to become a coach and Gardler whom Geno modeled his coaching style after-old school, tough and gritty. The rules were clear, and you were expected to follow them.
 
After graduating high school in 1972, Auriemma attended Montgomery County Junior College. He later transferred to West Chester State University, where his coaching career began. Jim Foster asked him to be his assistant coach for the girls' basketball team at Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg. The pay for the entire season was around $600. For two years, Auriemma attended classes at West Chester and drove an hour to and from Bishop McDevitt High School. To make ends meet, he stocked shelves at a grocery store from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.Geno "Kept Showing Up".
 
In 1978, Foster was hired to coach the women's team at Saint Joseph's University, and he asked Auriemma to come with him. During the summers, Geno began working Cathy Rush's basketball camp. Rush had won three national championships as the Head Women's Coach at Immaculata University.
 
He also took the initiative to bond with two future NBA coaches, Jack McKinney and Jim Lynam, who worked at Saint Joseph's. He also learned from Paul Westhead, the future Lakers and Loyola Marymount coach, who was at La Salle. He learned from Chuck Daly, the Head Coach at Penn. Auriemma worked with these coaches during the day and picked their brains at night.
 
Auriemma also bonded with Phil Martelli. When Martelli became the Head Boy's Coach at Auriemma's old high school, Bishop Kenrick, he hired Geno as his assistant. In 1981, Martelli recommended Auriemma to Debbie Ryan, the Head Women's Coach at the University of Virginia, to be her assistant. Although he was working in Virginia, he continued to travel to Philadelphia and the Poconos to work summer camps with his Philadelphia mentors, gaining more and more knowledge. Auriemma just "Kept Showing Up".
 
After four years at Virginia, he became the Head Women's Coach at Connecticut.  He was ready, because he had "Kept Showing Up".
 
If you have a goal, it may be attainable, but it will require you to "Keep Showing Up". Will you?

​Geno Auriemma is the Women's Head Basketball Coach at the University of Connecticut. His teams have won eleven national championship; the most in the history of college basketball.
 
Before Auriemma arrived at UConn, the women's basketball program had only one winning season in its history. Amazingly, since his arrival in 1985, the Huskies have had only one losing season—his first year with the team.
 
When he started at UConn his team had to share locker room space with the men's soccer team. Auriemma and his still current assistant coach Chris Dailey were crammed into a tiny office, where they used a rotary phone and shared a line with the track coach. If he was on a call, the basketball coaches would have to wait until he was done before dialing. The ceilings in the practice facility leaked so badly that rain made practice impossible. He didn't let any of these things become an excuse.
 
Since his arrival in 1985, the UConn women's basketball team has won 43 regular season and tournament titles, advanced to 17 Final Fours, posted six perfect seasons and won 11 national championships. In addition to 11 NCAA titles his program has mounted winning streaks of 111 and 90 games, twice surpassing Coach Wooden's 88-game run.
 
Auriemma's career is an inspirational story based on three of his great qualities: Hard Work, Honesty and an Open Mind. His family immigrated from Italy to the United States in 1961. As a new second grader at St. Francis of Assisi School, seven year old Geno spoke no English. With the help and support of his aunt, mother and the nuns at the school, Geno was up to the challenge and ultimately learned English, graduated and went on to Bishop Kenrick High School.
 
In his book Geno: In Pursuit of Perfection, Auriemma described the role women have played in his life:
 
"Since I can remember, I have never ever had any doubt that the role of women in the life of everybody that I knew was overpowering," he says. "You understood they were people that you listened to, that they would be stern, they would discipline you, but they would love you. They would tell you, ‘This is what you need to do to be better.' They would criticize you when you were wrong. They would praise you when you were good. They would reward you, they would scold you, they made you work for everything. So this idea of women being the weaker sex, that's just so foreign to me. Whenever I hear that I'm like, ‘What world did those people grow up in?'"
 
For Geno Auriemma his mother, Marsiella (who spoke no English), his aunt, who was his interpreter, his second grade teacher Sister Joseph Theresa and later on his favorite high school teacher Sister Rose Patrice, who helped him pass tenth grade geometry and stay eligible for basketball just as he was falling in love with the sport, set the foundation for how he would coach and handle adversity.

John Wooden's college coach at Purdue was Hall of Famer and Basketball Coaching Pioneer Ward "Piggy" Lambert. Coach Lambert wrote Practical Basketball in 1932, one of the first "bibles" of the game (a 243 page textbook). In his book, Coach Lambert discussed two important aspects of being an effective coach: Making sure players take individual initiative and still have great teamwork.
 
Whether ii is a basketball team or a work team, an effective coach or manager will ensure that individuals are taking initiative. Coach Lambert put it this way:
 
"The coach must be a teacher of good habits. Because of the rapid changing of offensive and defensive situations, players do not have much time to think. They must make quick decisions. The coach must see that initiative is developed in the players. He must see that good habits are so well established that players perform them in times of stress."
 
In his book with Don Yeager A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring, Coach Wooden discussed how Coach Lambert stressed initiative:
 
"I laugh, now, that we had no idea just how far ahead of his time Coach Lambert really was. When Nike launched their "Just Do It" slogan in 1988, I thought, "That's what Coach Lambert was saying all along!" "The doer makes mistakes," he would say. "Mistakes come from doing, but so does success." He stressed the importance of acting rather than overanalyzing.That's why fundamentals were so key for him. If your body was already conditioned to have everything else positioned as it should be, you could trust your instincts in a high-pressure game situation.
 
I think there is a lesson there for everyone, on or off the court: If something needs to be done, do it. If there is something you think might be beneficial for those around you, be the one to act; don't wait for someone else to do it. Take action and take initiative. It can be passing the ball, or it can be striking up a conversation with a lonely neighbor - whatever the situation, we all should have the fundamentals in line so we can seize the moment and act. And never let your fear of failure prevent you from going forward.
 
One of my favorite lessons from Coach Lambert is that the team that makes more mistakes is probably the team that wins the game. There are risks and there will be mistakes, but if you've conditioned for them, the victories will outweigh the losses. I firmly believe that this is true for just about any situation in athletics or in life; if your principles are solid, you can approach any opportunity with confidence."
 
Coach Lambert blended initiative and teamwork by insisting individual action was taken to benefit the team, not for a selfish purpose. Coach Wooden described Coach Lambert this way:
 
"Team spirit was his other big focus. If you didn't play in a way that lifted the team, you would be sitting on the bench, no matter who you were."