Geno Auriemma learned a new language, life lessons and a love of sports after emigrating from Italy to Norristown

Originally published March 29, 2000.

STORRS, Conn. - The teenager spotted Geno Auriemma fetching the mail in front of his upper middle-class Manchester, Conn., home and stopped, certain he'd seen that face before.

Yes, it was the guy on the TV commercials, the coach of the No. 1-ranked University of Connecticut women's basketball team.

"The kid recognizes me and says, 'You live here? ' " Auriemma said. "I didn't know what to say, but I said, 'I have to live somewhere, don't I? What's wrong with here? ' It was like I should be living somewhere else. In a million-dollar mansion or something. Like our nice house wasn't good enough. There are people who are shocked to learn that my kids go to Manchester High instead of a private academy.

"That's what it's like up here sometimes. If they only knew. . . "

They probably wouldn't believe it. Even Norristown friends who know him best still find themselves in disbelief at times as they sort through the details of an amazing Philadelphia success story. Auriemma has risen from a hardscrabble childhood to become one of America's most recognizable and successful basketball coaches.

It is the stuff of made-for-TV movies. Not rags to riches, but close.

Auriemma is an Italian immigrant, raised by his factory-worker parents in a row home in Norristown's tough West End. Months passed until the Auriemmas saved enough to afford running water or electricity. Donato Auriemma earned $65 a week making cinder blocks in nearby Conshohocken; Marziello Auriemma made $1.25 an hour in a stone factory on Main Street in the heart of Norristown's industrial area.

Now, 39 years after arriving in America and teaching himself to speak English, Geno Auriemma returns to his Philadelphia-area roots this week, as coach of the No. 1 team (34-1) in the land. He is hoping to win his second NCAA championship with his 68-year-old mom, sister Anna and brother Ferruccio in the seats with many friends and family at the First Union Center.

"To be able to come home and go for a national championship. . ." said UConn star Shea Ralph. "It would be the ultimate gift we could give him. "

Said Huskies forward Svetlana Abrosimova: "To be able to go home at the top. . .what a full circle he has traveled."

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Seated in the living room of her Phoenixville home, with family pictures adorning a nearby mantel, Marsi Auriemma said she still can't comprehend how her son made it.

"He had it so hard," she said. "All we really had were each other. No English. No money. No car. No television. Hardly furniture. Not much. I see 'G' now and I still can't believe. I'm so proud when I see him [on TV], it makes me cry sometime. "

Born Luigi on March 23, 1954, in Montello, Italy, a tiny, remote village outside Naples, Geno was 7 years old when his parents immigrated to America and settled in Norristown with Donato's brother, Steve, and his family.

"We came here with one suitcase," his mother said. "One. Nothing else. "

Wherever they went - work, school, the market - they walked, in rain or snow, except on rare occasions when there was enough money left after buying food at Fiore's supermarket on Dekalb Street to hail a taxi to get the groceries home. Usually, they carried them more than a mile.

"The only people I knew were factory workers and laborers growing up," Geno said. "I didn't know anyone that had a career or a college degree. No one. It was the way then. Everyone I knew - relatives, friends, neighbors - worked at Alan Wood Steel or in the factories. That's why I'm almost embarrassed by what all this success has brought me. "

Auriemma remembers being 9 or 10 when he first had a few coins jingling in his pocket, a mother's reward for errands run. One of his favorite things each month was making the rounds on foot throughout Norristown, with an envelope containing approximately $90 in cash, paying the bills, one at a time until the envelope was empty. His parents never had a checkbook or credit card. Just as in their native Italy, everything was paid for in cash. His mother still does not own a credit card, and any checks written to pay bills are handled by Anna, who lives nearby.

Paying the bills taught Geno responsibility, discipline and how to deal with people. He was a street-smart 11, going on 18. He also disliked being called Lou, short for Luigi, and asked his mother to choose another name.

"He came home one day and said, 'Ma, I need a new name. No like Luigi. How about Geno? ' I say OK," his mother said.

It was while being raised on Kohn Street that he first was exposed to sports in America. While in fifth grade at St. Francis School, he discovered something called Little League. Baseball. He had known only futbol (soccer) as a child in Italy.

"We could hear children playing from where we lived," his mother recalled. "One day, he follow the sounds. "

Out the back door, through the alleys and down the hill, little Luigi roamed. The rocks were all lined up across Stony Creek, which snakes through Montgomery County on its way to the Schuylkill in downtown Norristown. Hopping stone-to-stone across the water was a breeze for any kid. The youth league field sits across Sterigere Street from Latshaw Field, the baseball home of Kennedy-Kenrick High and St. Joseph's University.

"I saw all the kids with these things [baseball gloves] on, on this field with dirt and grass, throwing a ball, and I was like, 'Wow, what's that? ' " Auriemma said. At first, he would sit and watch for hours some days, trying to understand. Usually, a hungry stomach or darkness told him it was time to go home, so "Ma" wouldn't be worried when she returned from work.

"I remember trying to find out everything about Little League, about tryouts, everything," he said. "That became the center of my world, playing baseball. Every day, every day, every day with the guys in the neighborhood. No matter what time of day it was, my mom knew where to find me. Playing baseball. Making friends. That's all I wanted to do. "

Auriemma credits his first coach, Ralph "Skag" Cottman, a Norristown coaching legend, with teaching him about baseball and life.

"He probably touched the lives of a million kids, including mine," Auriemma said. "Thank God for Skag Cottman. I'll never forget him until the day I die. "

Auriemma did not know whether Cottman was still alive, so many years after learning how to throw and field ground balls and run the bases. There is just one Cottman with a listed phone number in Norristown. Now 79 and battling health problems, he answered a stranger's longshot phone call and was immediately overwhelmed upon hearing the name "Geno Auriemma. "

"Oh, my Lord," he said. "My Geno. Every time I see him on television, I say, 'There's my Geno, my man. ' Best ballplayer I ever had. He could hit, run and throw, and he never answered you back. Just a joy to coach. "

Cottman has quietly followed Auriemma's career every step of the way, through his high school basketball playing days at Bishop Kenrick (now Kennedy-Kenrick) and his many coaching stops along the way to Connecticut: St. Joseph's, as a part-time assistant to women's coach Jim Foster (1978); Kenrick, as junior varsity coach and assistant to Phil Martelli (1979-81); the University of Virginia (1981-85), as assistant to women's coach Debbie Ryan.

"I remember telling my kids about him," Cottman said. "I'd go over to Kenrick without him knowing and watch him [play and later coach]. I remember telling them, 'He's gonna make it. ' I've been rooting for him since the day I met him. "

Auriemma had no choice but to learn to speak English on his own while a student at St. Francis.

"I remember hearing a nun tell me and my aunt, 'Listen bud, here's the deal: In June, all the kids that know what they're doing are going on to third grade. All the ones who don't are staying back, so you've got a choice. Either figure it out or you're staying in second grade. But there's no staying after school and talking to you in Italian and helping you through this. You just better hurry up and get it,' " Auriemma said.

"I was like, 'All right, I've just got to get it. ' And I got it. I worked my little butt off to get it. You were kind of under the gun a little bit, but my friends were great, helping me. My friends, Paul McDade, Donnie Sobeck, Mike Kirkpatrick, were great guys who kind of looked after me. "

Sobeck, one of his best and first friends, caught every game Auriemma pitched, from Little League through Babe Ruth, until Geno suffered arm trouble and turned to basketball. Sobeck, an All-Catholic catcher at Kenrick in its heyday, and the former head coach at Kennedy-Kenrick, died of cancer in 1997. Later that year, during the Big East Tournament, Auriemma would lose his father to cancer.

The luncheon after his father's funeral became an unforgettable tonic for Auriemma. Many of his neighborhood friends and high school teammates and coaches attended to pay their respects. Old times were relived, stories exaggerated and an evening of laughs and unforgettable memories were shared. It was just like being at the outdoor courts in West Norriton or Audubon Elementary almost 30 years ago. Auriemma postponed his return to his team at the Big East Tournament to enjoy the time with family and friends he wishes he saw and talked to more frequently.

Nineteen years have flown by since Auriemma left the area for his first full-time coaching job. He was just 26 and a newlywed when the University of Virginia hired him as an assistant for its rising women's basketball program.

Whenever an old friend phones him at UConn, everything stops.

"Every time we're together, it's like we're still hanging out at the courts or sitting around The Glass Rack [tavern in Norristown], busting on each other and talking sports," Auriemma said. "Whenever I go back, whether down the shore with [wife] Kathy [from Cheltenham High] or visiting my mom, I look around and go, 'Holy geez, come on, it couldn't have been like this. It couldn't have been. '

"Kathy and I, we'll look around and say, 'Did we sound like that? ' That's the first thing out of our minds. It's another world. And it's a world I talk about a lot with people I meet. It's a special, special area. And I wouldn't trade my days in Norristown for anything or anywhere. They made me what I am."

Before he died, Auriemma's father would proudly experience his son's shining moment, when UConn capped a 35-0 season with the national championship in 1995.

"I thank God all the time that my husband saw what 'G' has made of himself," his mother said. "He worried so much about 'G.' He didn't believe in sports. He wanted him to work in the factory, so he could make money to put bread on the table. Even after Geno went to Connecticut and we went up to see him, we were worried. There was nothing there. Nobody. 'G' kept saying, 'I'm going to make it, Pa, it's just going to take time. '

"To finally see him happy and successful, in the Final Four, before he died. . .he was so proud of his son, 'G.' "