Geno Auriemma’s Norristown roots are never far from his mind, even as he makes NCAA history

Former Bishop Kenrick guard Geno Auriemma is now the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history.

If that sentence required a double-take, you’re likely not alone.

Even after his 40 years of dominance in women’s college basketball at the University of Connecticut, friends and former teammates of Auriemma — once an Italian immigrant who couldn’t speak English — still marvel at the improbability of the accomplishment.

Wednesday night at Gampel Pavilion, Auriemma and more than 60 former UConn players celebrated courtside after his current crop thumped Fairleigh Dickinson, 85-41, for victory No. 1,217.

About a dozen friends from Norristown also made the trip.

“It’s unbelievable,” Kenrick alumnus Jack Eisenmann said during a phone interview. “You just can’t believe it’s happening. … We never thought in a million years that this would happen. [Auriemma] didn’t either!”

Auriemma surpassed former Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, 71, who unexpectedly retired at the end of last season. Former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who retired in 2022, holds the men’s record with 1,202 victories.

» READ MORE: Norristown’s Geno Auriemma earns NCAA record 1,217 victory in No. 2 UConn’s win over Fairleigh Dickinson

Auriemma owns 11 national championships (most among any Division I coach), a record 111-game win streak (2014 to 2017), six national titles during undefeated seasons, two gold medals, and the undying respect, admiration, and friendship of those who grew up with him.

“It’s a hell of a story coming over from Italy, coming to Norristown, and his parents not speaking English,” said Kenrick teammate Fran Rafferty. “He’s done good … he’s done good.”

Auriemma was born Luigi in 1954 in Montella, a remote town just outside Naples, Italy. He was 7 when he and his parents settled in what was considered Norristown’s rough West End. His father, Donato, earned $65 a week making cinder blocks in Conshohocken, while Auriemma’s mother, Marsiella, made $1.25 an hour in a stone factory.

It took months for the family to save enough money for running water and electricity, utilities unavailable to them in Italy.

Paul McDade, 70, still remembers the broken English that Auriemma managed while McDade sat behind him in sixth grade at St. Francis of Assisi in Norristown.

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“He had to learn quickly when he came over from Italy,” McDade said via phone. “He had to learn the language and his parents really didn’t speak the language when they got here, and he kind of taught them everything.”

Auriemma also handled much of the family’s finances, often toting an envelope stuffed with about $90 as he walked around town and paid bills.

McDade, who later played basketball at Wilmington University under former Villanova standout Jimmy Huggard, said Auriemma was fairly fluent by eighth grade.

He was also a talented athlete, which, McDade said, may have helped Auriemma build friendships despite the language barrier. Baseball was the first sport Auriemma excelled at here. He had grown up playing soccer in Italy.

Eisenmann, 71, served as Auriemma’s director of basketball operations at UConn for nine years (2001-2010), which included five national championships.

Before Auriemma arrived on UConn’s Storrs, Conn. campus in 1985, the women’s basketball program had just one winning season since it began in 1974.

Eisenmann still can’t help but notice how Auriemma’s path paralleled that of their late Kenrick coach, Harry “Bud” Gardler, who almost accidentally altered the course of women’s basketball.

Eisenmann was a sophomore when Auriemma, a freshman, joined pickup basketball games after school to “just clown around.” Gardler had recently been named Kenrick’s coach and would sometimes play with them. One day, Gardler asked the boys on the team about the scrappy kid who kept showing up.

“[Gardler] could tell [Auriemma] was a competitor,” Eisenmann said. “He knew he was raw, but he also saw a young athlete. You have to remember, when Bud took over our program, we were the doormats of the league basically.”

» READ MORE: Geno Auriemma on his first coach, Bud Gardler: ‘He didn’t deviate’

Auriemma has often credited Gardler as a coaching inspiration. Baseball coach Ralph “Skag” Cottman provided another important push.

But Rafferty — who played guard at St. Joseph’s, where his father, Frank, also played — still sees some of Gardler when watching Auriemma on the sidelines.

“First of all, they were competitors,” Rafferty said. “Then the arms crossed. The cockiness. Buddy had that and Geno’s had that forever. He had that hardworking, grew up from modest means, and self-reliance. That’s what’s carried him through all these years, even at UConn.”

Their connection from Kenrick, which merged with Archbishop Kennedy in 1993 and then closed permanently in 2010, has certainly evolved since they teased Auriemma when he first took the UConn job.

“We’re all going, ‘My, God, where is Storrs, Connecticut?’ ” Rafferty said with a laugh.

McDade attends a few games a year and occasionally plays golf with Auriemma.

“We had a great time in high school,” McDade said. “[Auriemma] was a great friend, and we hung out a lot together.”

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Eisenmann was the ringleader behind getting the Kenrick contingent to Wednesday’s game.

“We just wanted to be there when he did it,” he said, “just to have our presence there, show our faces, show our support. We were all real close.”

“It’s a made-for-TV movie what’s happened,” Rafferty said of Auriemma’s career. “We couldn’t be more proud of him. I told someone the other day, ‘It’s not bad for a kid from Norristown and Bishop Kenrick High School.‘ ”