Copyright Hartford Courant
STORRS — The line now stretches the full length of the catwalk above the Gampel Pavilion court. There were 12 banners spaced evenly across, the last sheathed in black, though all in the building new what was underneath. Geno Auriemma knew better than anyone. “I got yelled at because I wasn’t watching the video,” he said. “I lived it, I experienced it. The banners, when they’re unveiled are symbolic, obviously, they’re part of history now, part of the legacy of UConn women’s basketball.” When the ceremonies were done Sunday, the UConn players took off their natty new championship-themed warmups and made short work of another opponent, this time Florida State, 99-67. A breeze. All the power-conference schools out there with the resources to stop UConn, or certainly slow UConn, yet so few have ever found a way to do it, found a road to a championship that doesn’t lead through UConn and that gauntlet of banners. UConn women raise championship banner, then Strong and Fudd lead charge in rout of Florida State And so the timeline of excellence marks the generations of championships, each representing the generational players who came to play for Auriemma and Chris Dailey these last 41 years and made them happen. “Are they all the same? Which is more important. Which was the hardest?” Auriemma said. “As I’ve gotten to this age, I’ve started to think more about, ‘they’re all incredibly significant to the people who won them.’ That’s why all our banners in the practice facility, we have all the names on the rosters of every banner so that you can remember, that’s who it means the most to.” At most schools, they hang banners to mark Final Fours. There would not be enough room in the arena for that at Gampel. Even limited to the 12 national champions, and even with the nine-year gap between Nos. 11 and 12, the catwalk has become crowded. If this year’s team, ranked No.1 in the AP Poll, makes it 13, they should be able to space them closer together and fit one more. Beyond that, fitting more banners may become nearly as tricky as earning them for one of the very few true dynasties in sports, to use that over- and misused word again. Back in the day, Old Timer’s Day at Yankee Stadium was the one day a year they dug the old, musty flannel banners out of storage and draped them over the frieze ringing the roof. Twenty-nine AL championships stretching from 1921 to 1964, when the original Yankees dynasty crashed. And like Geno was saying, you could look up from the grandstand and point, those were Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig pennants, there are the Joe DiMaggio pennants, the Mickey Mantle pennants. Each generation had their own. Auriemma, like most from outside New York, used to resent all that Yankee glory, until he started winning championships all in a row at UConn and learned how heavy the weight was that a top-of-sport heavyweight has to carry. Sunday was a day for UConn women’s fans young and old to point to the catwalk and recite the names, the Rebecca Lobo banner, the Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird and Swin Cash and Maya Moore and Napheesa Coller banners. At the appropriate moment, the spotlight was trained and the fearless folks on the catwalk pulled the ropes to lift the black shroud and reveal the Paige Bueckers banner. She is gone, though dynasties always have overlapping stars. It’s also an Azzi Fudd-Sarah Strong banner, but as they combined for 44 points in 44 minutes against the Seminoles, you get the feeling they’re after ones of their own for the next generation to point out. Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: Here is Emeka Okafor’s second act; UConn stars help Jamaica recovery, more The 1995 banner, Auriemma compared to “landing on the moon.” The 2025 banner is set apart from the others by the difficult years, by this program’s standards, that preceded it. “Quite honestly, for me, it feels a little more detached,” Auriemma said. “I’m consciously or subconsciously separated from it all. I’m almost looking at it from the outside instead of being on the inside. From the final buzzer on, I’ve just kind of … like at the parade, I’m just watching everything in front of me, getting a kick out of peoples’ reactions. Truly, this one has felt way, way different than all the rest. I’m just an innocent bystander.” Maybe Auriemma, who will turn 72 before this season is over, knows what the rest of us do not, when he will retire, whether that 12th banner could be his last, or the next one will be. The several years in which the Huskies only got as far as the Final Four led some to say the UConn dynasty was dead, perhaps that was wishful thinking on the part of all those power conference programs who, for all the resources, have still found a way to stop UConn from hanging banners. That long timeline of excellence hanging from the catwalk means different things to different people, to the players who were part of one or more, the coaches who led the way to all of them, the opponents who come in and wonder how such a long array of championships could be possible, or if there will ever be a road to a championship that does not go through here. But even the most durable of dynasties can’t go on hanging these banners on to infinity … can it? “If you asked me, CD, or anybody associated with this, ‘if you could go into a time machine and go back and relive all these and try to do it again, I would say ‘no,'” Auriemma said. “Because there is no way this could ever happen the way it happened. It was such a unique thing, and I was there for every one of them, I saw it, I felt it, I was a part of it, and even for me it’s not that easy to be reminded of it, because it’s a lot. It’s a lot to deal with. Grateful, but it’s a lot.”
