Geno Auriemma discusses how recruiting genuinely enthusiastic, team-oriented players has become harder because young athletes model themselves on televised professional athletes. He stresses that his program places a "huge premium on body language" — players who show poor body language or disengagement (including bench behavior) will not be played, regardless of talent, and gives a specific anecdote of benching a player for immature behavior.
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Recruiting enthusiastic kids is harder than it's ever been.
Because every kid watches TV and they watch the NBA or they watch Major League Baseball or they watch the NFL, whatever sport they watch, wnba, it doesn't matter. And what they see is people just being really cool, so they think that's how they're going to act.
And they haven't. They haven't even figured out which foot to use as a pivot foot. And they're going to act like they're really good players. You see it all the time. See it every AU tournament you see at every high school game. So recruiting kids that are like, really upbeat and loving life and love the game and have this tremendous appreciation for when their teammates do something. Well, that's hard. That's hard. It's really hard. So on our team.
We, me, my coaching staff.
We put a huge premium on body language. And if your body language is bad, you will never get in the game ever.
I don't care how good you are. If somebody says, well, you know, you just benched Stewie for, you know, 35 minutes in the Memphis game a couple years ago. Yeah, I did. Oh, that was to motivate her for the South Carolina game the following Monday. No, it wasn't. Stewie was acting like a 12 year old. So I put her on the bench and said, sit there. It doesn't matter on our team. Now, the other coaches might say, well, you can do that because you got three other, you know, all Americans. I get that. I understand that. But I'd rather lose than watch kids play the way some kids play. I'd rather lose. And they're allowed to get away with just whatever. And they're always thinking about themselves. Me, me, me, me, me. I didn't score, so why should I be happy? I'm not getting enough minutes. Why should I be happy? That's the world that we live in today, unfortunately. And kids check the scoreboard sometimes because they're going to get yelled at by their parents if they don't score enough points.
Don't get me started. So when I. When I look at my team, they know this. When I watch game film, I'm checking what's going on on the bench. And if somebody's asleep over there, somebody doesn't care. Somebody's not engaged in the game. They will never get in the game ever. And they know that. They know I'm not kidding.
