What: Paul Assaiante, coach of Trinity’s men’s squash team, will be one of three distinguished panelists participating in a Key Issues Forum sponsored by The Hartford Courant/FOX CT, The MetroHartford Alliance and the University of Hartford. The other two are Geno Auriemma and Jennifer Rizzotti, coach of the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team and the University of Hartford’s women’s basketball team, respectively. Oz Griebel, president and CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance, will moderate. The three coaches will discuss winning, what it takes to maintain record levels of performance and what lessons winning streaks hold for life. The forum is free and open to the public. Those wishing to attend should register at: www.metrohartford.com.
When: Thursday, January 12 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Lincoln Theater on the campus of the University of Hartford, 200 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06117. For directions and a map, please visit: http://hartford.edu/map.
Background: Entering his 18th year at Trinity and having amassed a record of 303-8, Assaiante and the men’s squash team are coming off a 13th consecutive national championship season. He is the owner of the longest winning streak in the history of U.S. collegiate varsity sports. Assaiante is the author of Run to the Roar: Coaching to Overcome Fear. The book, co-authored by James Zug, was published in 2010.
Under Auriemma’s guidance, the UConn Huskies have been transformed from a program with only one winning season to one with seven national titles, 12 Final Fours, four perfect seasons (1995, 2002, 2009 and 2010) and 36 Big East titles. Auriemma has been the UConn coach since 1985. He led the Huskies to a 90-game winning streak from 2008-10, eclipsing the previous NCAA record of 88 straight wins set by John Wooden’s UCLA men’s basketball teams in the 1970s.
Rizzotti is the winningest coach of men’s or women’s basketball at the University of Hartford, having built the women’s basketball program into an America East power. Her teams have won four regular season championships in the past six years, five tournament championships in nine years and made six trips to the NCAA Tournament. Rizzotti also coached the USA Basketball U-19 women’s national team in 2011 and the U-18 national team in 2010. Both teams won the gold medal at the FIBA Americas Championships. Rizzotti was a star point guard on the UConn Huskies’ 1995 national championship team.
The Hartford Courant has sponsored Key Issues Forums on topics of importance to the community for more than 25 years. The MetroHartford Alliance serves as the economic development leader for the Hartford region and as the city’s chamber of commerce.