Set to make $3 million per year, UConn’s Geno Auriemma looks back on his first contract for $30K

STORRS — Geno Auriemma’s first contract at UConn, signed in 1985, was for five years at an annual salary of $30,000.

Actually, it was $29,000 and change, he said Saturday, but he likes to tell people it was $30,000.

Auriemma’s most recent contract, signed in April and announced Friday, is for 100 times that amount: five years at $3 million a year.

“Obviously it’s a far cry from 1985, where it was a single sheet of paper, only on one side, to today,” Auriemma said, as one person after the next greeted him and asked for pictures at Elliot Ballpark before the UConn baseball game. “It’s a change, but one thing that hasn’t changed is I made a commitment to this place a long time ago. People have always asked me, first it was, ‘Are you going to go coach somewhere else?’ Then it became, ‘How much longer are you going to coach?’ And there was never any discussion back and forth about anything other than, ‘I know I’m well taken care of and this is where I want to be.’ This was probably the easiest of any of my negotiations with the University of Connecticut over the last 25 years.”

Auriemma, 67, is 1,119-144 with 21 Final Four appearances and 11 national championships in 36 seasons. His new $15 million contract, retroactive to April 2020, makes him the highest paid coach in women’s college basketball and will extend through his 40th season in Storrs.

Everything is different now, with UConn having become one of the top programs in all of college sports, still going strong with 13 consecutive Final Four appearances, and incoming waves of top national recruits and, probably, the 2021-22 preseason No. 1 ranking.

Auriemma is in the Hall of Fame. He’s second on the all-time victories list, with 111 in a row at one point. He’s the face of a university in many ways, one of the faces of an entire sport, a young Philly guy who over parts of five decades has helped push women’s basketball further into the national consciousness while making it a galvanizing force for our state.

He is still just as ambitious and driven as he was when he arrived in Storrs to cash in big after four years as an assistant at the University of Virginia.

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – MARCH 27: Head coach Geno Auriemma of the UConn Huskies calls out during the first half against the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament at the Alamodome on March 27, 2021 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

Carmen Mandato / Getty Images

“Five years, 30 thousand a year,” Auriemma said. “And you know what? I thought I could do a lot of stuff, moving up there. I could do this, this, this and this, because it was a lot more than I was making at UVA. We went on vacation. All of the sudden, we didn’t have to use a Pampers box for a cocktail table in the apartment.”

Auriemma spent about 10 minutes chatting with UConn outfielder Kyler Fedko, each leaning on the left field wall, before the game and joked, “I had to straighten him out.” More people came and went as Auriemma stood just beyond the fence. Athletic Director David Benedict. Former Board of Trustees Chair Larry McHugh. Board member Tom Ritter, the former Connecticut Speaker of the House. Chats. Handshakes. Co-workers and random fans walked by with beer, soft drinks, food, many stopping for a quick word.

This is the attention that comes with success.

A lot of money comes with that, too. And options. Auriemma’s deal can be extended by two separate additional one-year terms, potentially keeping him under contract through 2026-27.

“I just come to work every day and do what I do and make a difference in kids’ lives, I hope,” Auriemma said. “I make a difference in the lives of the people who enjoy watching us play, I hope. For that, I make a lot of money. And I don’t feel any different than I did with my first contract. My daughter works at Miss Porter’s School [in Farmington] — it’s all she’s wanted to do — and they pay her $45,000 and she thinks she’s died and gone to heaven. So everybody’s vision of ‘I’ve made it big,’ is different.”

As the game approached, Auriemma kept talking with groups of approaching friends and fans about his kids, grandkids, family vacations, the past, the future. About UConn in general, too, his near disbelief in the transformation of the southwest portion of campus that is part of a greater campus transformation over 36 years.

Another UConn player warming up on the field yelled, “Hey, Coach! Congrats on the contract! Way to work!”

A woman approached and said, “Thank you for signing. I’m so happy.”

“I’m happy, too,” Auriemma said.

Auriemma’s salary will go well beyond $3 million with performance bonuses, such as $100,000 for a national championship and $50,000 for making the Final Four — which the Huskies have done every season since losing in the 2007 Elite Eight.

The first Final Four was in 1991. The first national championship was in 1995. Auriemma was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006. He has coached six undefeated teams and sent dozens of players to the WNBA.

“If I look back now and put myself 30 years ago and somebody said let me write down for you all the stuff you’re going to do the next 30 years, I’d say, ‘Who wrote that book?’” Auriemma said moments later. “That’s one of those books you read when you’re 12 where a kid wants to be a baseball player and then a Major Leaguer and then a Hall of Famer and then it all comes true and, hey, isn’t that great.”

The most recent UConn national championship was in 2016, the program’s fourth in a row. South Carolina, Notre Dame, Baylor and Stanford have won the four NCAA Tournaments since.

“We were at a place for the longest time that was fairy tale land,” Auriemma said. “Go undefeated, go to the Final Four, win a national championship. Then you have a parade, and you do that every year. Because of that, there’s this perception that you’re going to do that every year until you’re 70 years old — win 30 games, win a national championship. But the longer you’re in this, the more you remind people that things that looked so easy, people are starting to see that it’s not that easy. We won four in a row. The streak is one now for a long time.”

Returning and incoming players arrive on campus next weekend and the team officially reports Tuesday, June 1. UConn, which went 28-2 last season without a senior, is likely to be the preseason No. 1-ranked team. The Huskies, in short, got to the top a long time ago and have stayed there without slippage.

“It’s important to me that, even now, at my age and at this step in our program, that we’re still capable of putting ourselves in that situation, that we can put ourselves in a position where if there’s a conversation about who’s going to be in the Final Four, it’s ‘I think Connecticut probably will be,’” Auriemma said. “So I’m glad when people say that. ‘Hey, who had the best recruiting class in the country? Connecticut did.’ I’m glad people are saying that at this stage of my career because it’s hard to maintain for that long.

“Whether we’ll ever be back to ‘We’re going to win one every year for the next five years,’ I always said that’s not realistic. But to be able to have the opportunity to, to be able to put a team out on the floor that our fans can’t wait to come watch, that means the world to me. To be able to have our kids accomplish what they accomplish while they’re here, and to see what they do after they leave – and then after their basketball playing career ends, and what they still do today – I just keeping shaking my head.”

Then came his signature $30,000 or $3 million chuckle and he kept chatting with people, leaning up against the fence at Elliot Ballpark.