Yes, tough headline, coming from a lifelong UConn Husky fan from Storrs, CT, the anointed U.S. capital of college basketball. The 25-26 season recently wrapped up with the men’s and women’s teams in the final four, and UConn dominating national media.
Kudos to the Michigan Wolverines’ victory over UConn in the men’s final and UCLA’s win over South Carolina in the women’s final. Reflecting on the drama, UConn’s Braylon Mullins’ 35-foot buzzer-beater in the Elite Eight win over Duke was a special moment. For the women, the highlight video also belonged to UConn, but for negative reasons – UConn Coach Geno Auriemma’s confrontation with South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley, following the Final Four loss to the Gamecocks.
While the Mullins video is viewed as positive (unless you are a Duke fan), the Auriemma video created a taint on the resume of the all-time winningest Division 1 coach. Just a few seconds of video, followed by hours of commentary, thousands of social media posts and what was viewed as an initial lackluster acceptance of a mistake became a significant reputation management issue.
From a media perspective, video is the hardest medium to recover from. It’s visceral and immediate, triggering instant emotional reactions. It is also easily accessible, permanent and shareable. Additionally, people retain negative impressions about 2-3 times more than positive ones. Not good for Geno.
Geno Auriemma is a legend in women’s hoops. With 12 national championships, he coached four undefeated teams and oversaw a 111-game winning streak. The Hall of Fame coach has advanced the sport while nurturing future Olympic and WNBA stars. But this visual incident was called out as bad judgment and sportsmanship and temporarily put a Wall of Shame around his Hall of Fame. Emotion got the best of him. Cameras show it was not flattering.
From a media perspective, public forgiveness is more achievable when the person in the spotlight responds directly and quickly and takes genuine accountability. In this case, the initial statement was weak, and commentators filled in gaps of what was not said. A substantive apology came four days later.
As a native of Storrs who is also a UConn alumnus and former employee, I attended hundreds of basketball games and relentlessly root for the Huskies. It pains me to use this as an example of how important it is to act quickly, honestly and directly when it comes to reputation management. But that’s my job.
Reflecting on my UConn journalism professors, events like this are “teaching moments.” As a communication agency owner, I know big personalities are hard to manage. But this should have been handled more quickly and better. Will 20 seconds of video permanently damage a 40-year career? Coach Staley took the high road saying it was time to “turn the page” and “one moment doesn’t define a career.” We’ll see how this plays out in the court of public opinion.
