Copyright Hartford Courant
STORRS — Until 10 days ago, the UConn women’s basketball team was preparing to travel more than 3,700 miles across an ocean to play its first game of the 2025 season at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany as part of the Armed Forces Classic. But when the game had to be abruptly relocated due to complications caused by the ongoing government shutdown, coach Geno Auriemma wasn’t disappointed when he found out his team would instead face No. 20 Louisville at the U.S. Naval Academy’s Alumni Hall in Annapolis, Maryland. “I think it would have been a really cool experience for the entire entire program,” Auriemma said after practice Friday. “But we live in a strange world right now. The alternative is pretty darn good, though. To be at a place like the U.S. Naval Academy is pretty special. If that’s a consolation prize, I feel pretty good about it.” UConn and Louisville will be the first women’s basketball teams to play a game in the Armed Forces Classic since it was established by ESPN Events in 2012 as part of the network’s programming around Veteran’s Day. It is also the first time the Classic has been held at a service academy rather than on a base. UConn women’s basketball season opener vs. Louisville gets a new home. Find out where. But it won’t be the first time the Huskies have engaged with the military community during an early-season road trip. Auriemma said he brought teams to the Naval Station at Pearl Harbor when they competed at the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1991, 1995 and 2001, and they toured the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier in San Diego when the Huskies played at San Diego State in 2007. He also took the Huskies to practice at West Point during preseason in 2018. Auriemma said he likes to expose players to the unique lifestyle of military service members to give them perspective about the challenges they go through at UConn. “Looking at the players’ faces, like (someone) is in charge of catching those planes when they get in on the carrier … Then it’s, what about you? ‘I’ve got to rotate over and box out on a jump shot,’” Auriemma said with a grin. “It’s an eye opener for how other people their age live … So I get a kick out of all that stuff and the players’ reactions.” Auriemma’s interest in military history began in his youth, when he began hearing stories about his grandfather who was killed in Egypt during World War II. After he immigrated with his family to the United States from Italy in 1961 at age seven, one of his cousins joined the Marines and another joined the Air Force. Both fought in the Vietnam War, as did many of Auriemma’s friends. Playing at the Naval Academy is especially meaningful because of his family connection. His wife Kathy’s father Paul Osler played basketball at Navy and graduated in 1932, so Auriemma dug up several of Osler’s old stat sheets in the program’s archives while coaching a USA Basketball training camp at the Annapolis campus before the FIBA World Cup in 2014. The Huskies coach flies a Navy flag next to an American flag outside of his home in Connecticut. “I’m a history buff, so I probably get more out of it than anybody else,” Auriemma said. “We spent an entire week down (at the Naval Academy) and I got to see everything I wanted to see … I love that stuff, so I’ll try to make sure that they get behind the scenes as much as they’re capable of.” Auriemma also carries a unique sense of patriotism because of his immigrant background. His mother became a U.S. citizen at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1976, on the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so he has always felt deeply connected to the country’s history and significance. After serving as the head coach of Team USA from 2009-16 and seeing the intense national pride of other countries firsthand, Auriemma said he has always appreciated that trait in U.S. military members. “Any time these kinds of things happen, I think back to those days and what it means to so many people, what the (American) flag represents to so many people,” Auriemma said. “Every time I’m around people in the military, they have that, and they’re pretty special people. Sometimes they get asked to do things they don’t like, but they do them anyway, like right now.”
