How did you become a huskie fan?

[freekimchee]

I went to Stanford for my undergrad during the Starbird, Wideman, Folkl era and was a fan. Just a casual fan though because I followed the men's team more at the time. A HS girlfriend (who later became an ex-wife) from my hometown went to Uconn and was a HUGE Huskies fan. During one of our breaks we met up and a Uconn game was on TV so we started watching and I was instantly fascinated with the style of play by Rizzotti and the rest of the '94-'95 team. I've been hooked ever since.

 

[Cuango]

Rebecca & Jen in 1995! I was flipping through the channels and the NC game was on. I had heard about this brash young coach and his undefeated team taking over the women’s game, so I watched them win, and became a UConn fan!

 

[Carnac]

Lots of UConn alums here.

 

[kteach]

Went to Uconn. Was on campus and went to the celebration of the 1st National Title at Gampel. Had a small class with Rebecca Lobo. Walked next to Kara Wolters on campus and felt petite (I'm 5'10'', so that doesn't happen very often!) Also attended several men's games in the family seats since my roommate was dating one of the managers. Clearly been hooked ever since!

 

[bballer]

My older sister and I were talking back in 1995 and she said to me you should watch the uconn women play basketball My response at the time was” your killing me watch women play basketball come On !!” Well the end of the story is watched them play and watch every game since 95. Go Uconn❤️

 

[huskiemaniac]

For me, it was after the UCONN - South Carolina game 2 years ago when Paige hit that crazy 3 pointer in overtime. I was a huge Michael Jordan fan growing up, and then a huge Dirk Nowitzki/Dallas Mavericks fan, and after Dirk retired, I completely lost interest in basketball. Then, just randomly the TV was on in the background at a friend's house, and there was buzz around some Paige Bueckers and how she scored 30 points in an OT win in a battle between the top two teams in the country. That piques my interest so later that day, I decide to youtube some highlights from the South Carolina game. My observations were 1) Paige was very good and 2) UCONN played really good team basketball and shared the ball well, but what really stole my attention was #10 celebrating with fist pumps, screams, chest bumps, and floor slapping at the end of each highlight, so I looked her up and found out she was Nika Muhl, a freshman from Croatia. I ended up finding MJL243's channel and re-watched the entire SC game, and then ended up watching the Marquette and St Johns games and I've been hooked on UCONN women's basketball ever since. To sum it up, I came because of Paige Bueckers, but stayed for Nika Muhl. Will admit I was a little despondent at the beginning of last season when Nika was barely playing and then got injured, but this season she's been playing over 30+ minutes every game and I've been happy as a clam. Also SO SO glad that conveniently UCONN happened to have the best discussion forum of any women's basketball team in the nation. Was curious if other teams had anything similar to the boneyard and was pretty shocked at how little activity there was on the Stanford and South Carolina forums considering all the success those teams have had.

Would love to hear other folks share stories about how they became UCONN fans.

Casual fan from birth really …my dad was a fan of all things UConn…then Cathy Bochain starred at my high school and later UConn…i followed her career and totally fell in love with the huskies!

 

[uconnfan68]

Followed UCMBB since early-mid 60s (maybe 1962). Started school there in 68. Won draft lottery and left. Longtime follower of many sports, and started reading articles and checking boxscores for UCWBB in mid 80s, probably when Geno was hired. First actually game was vs Virginia in 1991 FF. Loved the way they played and have seen nearly every tv game since.

 

[LesMis89]

January 16, 1995 - UConn vs the Lady Vols

Had the day off work and tuned in the game, mainly because Dennis and RuthAnn Lobo taught in our school. (Aside: RuthAnn Lobo was my younger daughter's counselor her freshman year of high school and literally changed my D's life.)

I was hooked. Rebecca, Jen, Precious (Nykesha), Janelle, The Big Girl (Kara), Bam Bam (Stacy Hansmeyer), TASSK Force and then came Taurasi.

What a memorable ride it's been.

 

[KY Card Fan]

I knew very little about WBB until Angel McCoughtry arrived at Louisville. Of course, I knew about Tennessee and Pat Summitt, and I knew that UConn was really good. But when I really started following the sport I realized just what the UConn program is. I quickly became a fan and UConn has been my second-favorite team ever since.

 

[Jc718]

Discovered Paige’s high school highlight videos on YouTube the summer of 2021. I watched the the backlog of her high school games on YouTube and saw comments that she was now at “UConn”. Had no idea what that was. Before that summer the closest I had ever been to watching a sporting event was maybe watching the halftime shows of the Super Bowl. Then discovered who Sue and Diana were and watched all their college years online after finishing watching Paige’s games.

 

[dbmill]

I never really followed UConn sports until I was a freshman at UConn, when I quickly became a fan of the UConn men's basketball team.

My first contact with UConn women's basketball was in the pre Geno years. I went to my first UConn women's basketball game at the old field house during the 1982-83 season. I was a graduate student looking for cheap entertainment, and nothing is cheaper than free admission. I immediately took a liking to the game and the team, and went to a bunch of games during that season and the next two seasons as well. After that I graduated and moved away from Storrs. I went to one game during Geno's first season, and no games at all over the next few years, although I was always interested in picking up the odd snippets of news about UConn women's basketball that would occasionally leak out in those early Geno years. I was also in a van pool that would take us to work, and I recall having discussions about the women's team with one of the other guys who would ride the van.

Anyway, during UConn's first trip to the final four in 1991, I found that their NCAA tourney games from the Palestra were on television (I believe CPTV picked up the feed), watched them, and found myself obsessing over the team again. My wife, who remembered me attending the women's basketball games while we were at UConn, took notice. Anyway, the following November I found myself listening to a preseason (for the 1991-92 season) interview with Geno on the old Arnold Dean sports talk show. During the course of the interview Geno mentioned that there was an annual women's basketball yearbook that was available for sale. I decided that I just had to have it. I mentioned the yearbook to my wife, and told her that I was going to go buy it. My wife cringed, told me don't bother, ran off into another room, and came out with said yearbook. She had already bought it for me as a Christmas gift. That Christmas as a gift she also produced tickets to a game in Storrs against North Carolina State. We've been going to games consistently ever since, and we became season ticket holders starting in the 1994-95 season.

 

[Matty722]

For me it was the 2002 NCAA Tournament. Tennessee played Vanderbilt in the Elite 8. My mom was watching it because an uncle-in-law had coached Jenni Benningfield (Sophomore for Vandy at the time) in high school. So I was cheering for Vandy and was so mad Tennessee won that I cheered for UConn in their Final Four matchup and loved what I saw from UConn. Been a massive fan ever since - I actually live in Kentucky, but I’d rather watch the UConn women every time over the Kentucky men’s basketball team. UConn has my heart!!!

 

[TeamFirst!]

I read an ESPN article where former Uconn players were saying that freshman Paige might just be the "best ever". I found that compelling for them to say so I watched some video and saw her game against South Carolina where she scored 30 points 3 games in a row or something like that. I'm a numbers guy so I looked that the stats and she was leading the team in like everything and shooting 3's at around 50% at the time etc. I'm here because Paige was off the charts and I like seeing kids like her. I traveled 3000 miles once to see Mookie Betts in the minors when I read that he hadn't "swung and missed a pitch" all year. Fantastic contact rate and walk to hit ratio in AA ball. I'm interested in anomalies. I've gotta say though, I'm a little uncomfortable being a "uconn" fan because they are kind of like the Yankees and I'm a Redsox fan. We win all the freaking time and have every advantage. I justify it though in that some other teams are certainly in the equation and it's not like winning is a cakewalk. I find these kids very compelling also. Easy to root for. Really nice kids. I would love any of these kids as my own, and I mean that sincerely. I'd be very proud of any of them. Watch how they interact with each other. I hope they all get to realize their dreams.

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

I started watching UCONN during the 1990-1991 season that led to the Final 4.
I watched off and on till 1994-1995 and have been hooked since then!
My buddy and I got season tickets for the 1997-1998 season.
We would get tickets to Big East Tournament and the NCAA Tournament and drive to BE then 1st & 2nd rounds, Sweet 16's, Elite 8's and the Final 4's, sometimes driving 3,500 to 4,000 miles to see our Huskies!
We even made the cover off the New London Day newspaper when UCONN lost to ND in the Semi's of the 2001 FF in an picture & article by Mike DiMauro!
As we got OLD the cost of tickets meals out, gas, hotels, parking, etc. were too much on retirement money and just too old to make trips even to Storrs & Hartford, we both gave up the tickets but still watch and follow the team!
My buddy and I have met some truly wonderful people through the UCONN Wbb games that have been like family still all these years!
The BY has been very important to me with my MANY health issues especially the last 9 years!

 

[MSGRET]

I was stationed in the Netherlands and AFN TV was carrying the 95 Women's Championship game. I decided to watch it since I had the following day off. I believe that it started around 10:00 PM local time. This was the first time watching women's game and I became a fan of UConn and the women's game. When I played basketball in the 60's and 70's it was below the rim and was more team play then individual play. The men's game had kinda turned me off so I was happy to see the UConn women play more of the style I grew up with.

I would watch UConn when they were on ESPN when I could, when they moved to AAC I was able to watch almost every game because they were either on ESPN or ESPN3. I became a diehard fan during the Stewie years and saw my first live game in NOV 2017 in Reno, an 8 hour drive from Vegas. I was very upset that KLS was not able to play, but watching UConn in person was a great experience.

I met a couple from Connecticut at the hotel, Bob and his wife, whose name has slipped my mind. I drove them to the game and we had dinner after it. At dinner we discussed UConn and Bob had asked me if I knew about the Boneyard, I asked what that was and he told me, said that it's easy to check and if I liked it I could join. When I got back to Vegas I checked it out and soon afterwards I became a boneyarder.

 

[OldSchooler]

. . . North Carolina (with Lenny Rosenbluth) . . .

My sincere apologies for misspelling Lennie's first name. Rosenbluth (who died last June at 89), star of the greatest NCAA final in history (1957), still holds UNC's single-season records for most points and highest scoring average. A number of his other records at UNC were broken by a fella named Michael Jordan.

 

[GoUconn7961]

I was channel surfing one Sunday and UConn happened to be on CPTV so I watched the game.
I was hooked after that. I had already been a men's fan since I had season tickets w/my now ex-husband.

 

[Junkman]

I went to college with a super nice young lady from Southwick, MA. And I've always been into sports, played basketball when I was younger, and saw from a distance the rise of the UConn women in the 90's, noting that one of their star players (Lobo) was from Southwick. Started paying closer attention. Noticed that these women played a type of game that I could relate to. (Defend, ball movement, fast break, etc. I couldn't relate much to one on one ball and dunking that the pro men showcased.) Was a fan from there, checking scores and watching tournament games. Then they landed Caroline Ducharme, who I knew was 2 x Mass Player of the year, started following closely, found the Boneyard, and the rest is history. BTW, the more you watch and learn about this team, the easier it is to cheer for them. What a great group of young women!

 

[Tonyc]

Back in the 90's I met a man named David Cole. I was a UConn WCBB fan as was he. We became friends and went to games together. He is the one that told me about the Boneyard and I began reading and posting. He had a friend who had season tickets who lived out of state and he would send tickets to Dave. Dave became the Kibitzer and I became Tonyc.

 

[HuskyinWRNY]

Born and raised in west haven. Toby Kimball, tonyhansen, just loved them

 

[HopJim]

Connection to Geno went back to 1970 or 1971 when my wife went to HS (Bishop Kendrick, Norristown, PA) with Geno and I lived nearby. Saw him play for some type of championship at the Phila. Palestra. Most folks in the general neighborhood knew of this Italian family that had several generations packed into a city row house with several of them still not speaking English. Followed his career since then.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

I'd been living overseas for several years, and returned to Connecticut in early 1997 with my young family. One day I turned on the TV and watched with jaw-dropping amazement the brilliant UConn women's basketball team perform. I had grown up watching the University of Maryland's very good men's basketball team lose game after game to Dean Smith's North Carolina. His teams just executed perfectly: seamless transition from defense to offense, perfect execution of basic basketball, including back door cuts, always finding the open man for just the right shot, and never, EVER, beating themselves. It was just so frustrating to watch. But it was the quintessence of team basketball.

I saw in Coach Geno's teams that perfection that Dean Smith's teams achieved. For those who never got a chance to watch Dean Smith's North Carolina teams, he was the Geno Auriemma of the men's game. And for the record, men's college basketball today is unwatchable. It's as if grown men were playing like elementary school kids- no understanding of the team game whatsoever!

In any event, I was hooked. Not long after, I believe UCLA's legendary coach John Wooden anointed UConn's women's team as "the best five-man team in America." Or something very close to that.

He was right. And UConn still is. We don't have Aliyah Boston. But UConn, when healthy, play the team game better than anyone else in the world!! And that is something to behold!

 

[SVCBeercats]

I read a local newspaper article about the ease of transferring between high schools. Primarily about football it mentioned basketball. Local girls basketball player, Ann Strother, was transferring into Highlands Ranch high school and was said to be really good. She was. Ms. Colorado basketball player for the next two years. Prior to this I never even knew there was girls basketball. I was curious about how she would do in college. So I followed her at UCONN. I liked Geno and CD's philosophy and style. So I continued to follow UCONN.