UConn Coach Geno Auriemma to Receive Sons of Italy Top Sports Honor
Press
Contact: Kylie Cafiero, (202) 547-2900 kcafiero@osia.org
WASHINGTON, October 26, 2004 The
Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) will honor
University of Connecticut's (UConn) women's basketball
coach, Geno Auriemma with its 2005 Sports Award
at the 49th National Convention in New York City
in August 2005.
Auriemma
currently holds the record of having the highest
winning percentage of any active coach in Division
I basketball. He is the only basketball coach in
history to lead a team to five consecutive Final
Four appearances.
"We
are pleased to honor Geno Auriemma," says Joseph
Sciame, OSIA's national
president. "His career has not only brought success and pride to the University
of Connecticut, but he is an inspiration to Italian Americans across the country."
The
University of Connecticut had only one winning season in the first 11 years of
the women's program prior to Auriemma's arrival. That all changed in 1986,
during his second year at UConn, when Auriemma led the Huskies in a winning streak
that continued for the next 17 years.
His honors
include 15 National Coach of the Year Awards, six time winner of the Big East
Coach of the Year and 14 Big East Regular Season Titles.
Auriemma will
accept the OSIA award during OSIA's 49th National Convention, a
biannual session that includes the election of national officers and bylaw changes.
The
2005 convention also marks the 100th anniversary of the Order Sons of Italy,
which was founded on June 22, 1905 by Dr. Vincenzo Sellaro and leading businessmen
in New York's Little Italy.
OSIA
is the largest and oldest national organization for men and women of Italian
heritage in the United States. It has more than 600,000 members and supporters
and a network of more than 700 chapters coast to coast. OSIA works at the community,
national and international levels to promote the heritage and culture of an estimated
26 million Italian Americans, the nation's fifth largest ethnic group, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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