For the 12th time in his career as head coach of the UConn Huskies, Geno Auriemma is a champion.

On Sunday, the Huskies dominated South Carolina through all four quarters of the national championship to lift the trophy. The title marked a fitting conclusion to the Paige Bueckers era at UConn, who leaves the school as one of the all-time greats.

With Bueckers leaving, Auriemma will have some work to do to get the Huskies back to the championship game next year, but it’s not a new problem for the veteran coach, who in his time has seen many of the best women’s basketball players in history step onto the court for UConn.

Speaking with reporters after the title win, Auriemma spoke to his longevity, citing his players as the reason he’s been able to stay young in spirit as he gets older, while also acknowledging that his career can’t go on forever.

“I know a lot of my friends that are my age, that haven’t done what I’ve done with who I’ve done it with, and they act way older because they lost the ability to be a kid, because they’re not around kids,” Auriemma said. “I may be 71 number-wise, but I think otherwise, I’m more able to do stuff with those young people because I’m around them every day and they rub off on me.

“Does that mean I could do this for another X number of years? No, because, you know, wine is good for you too. But if you’re around it all the time, after a while you wake up and you go, ‘That was really bad. I had too much fun.’ These kids are fun, but there is going to come a time when the fun doesn’t eliminate how hard it is to do this job. This job is really hard to do.”

Whenever Auriemma decides to retire from coaching, he will leave the sport as one of the greatest to ever do the job. Until then, he has more titles to try and win, and with returning talents like Sarah Strong and Ashlynn Shade, don’t expect the Huskies to roll over any time soon.

More March Madness on Sports Illustrated


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Geno Auriemma Explains Why Coaching Young Athletes Is Like Drinking Wine.

Test hyperlink for boilerplate