It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The "hard" is what makes it great.
— Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in A League of their Own

The college basketball season is arguably the most demanding of all intercollegiate team sports. For the top contenders, the "season" actually spans three changes in nature. In the fall, practice begins. The first tip off occurs just before Thanksgiving and games continue through the winter. When the teams that survive the seven months of the "season" cut down the championship nets, it is spring.

Just getting through a basketball season is hard enough. Win the NCAA championship? Only a handful of teams have ever done it — 35 on the men's side and 12 on the women's side, including UConn. Win more than one title?

Harder still. Ten for men and five for women, including UConn. How many universities can display both men and women's trophies from different years? Just three: Stanford, North Carolina and UConn.

Win both the NCAA Division I men's and women's championships in the same year? Until 2004, it had not happened, it was thought to be nearly impossible.

Championship portrait: The men's and women's basketball teams take a break after the parade through downtown Hartford and before being honored during a ceremony at the State Capital Building.

The Huskies' dual championships in San Antonio and New Orleans in April were unprecedented. The achievement is stunning because in addition to surviving the grueling demands of a basketball season, both teams carried what men's head coach Jim Calhoun called "the mantle of expectations." Virtually every pre-season poll projected UConn as the team to beat during the 2003-04 season for both the men's and women's NCAA titles, with All-Americans Emeka Okafor '04 (BUS) and Diana Taurasi '04 (CLAS) gracing the covers of national magazines. Head coach Geno Auriemma's team had the additional challenge of trying for its third consecutive national championship. Then there were the expectations of students and faculty and an entire nation of alumni and fans diagnosed this year with an advanced case of Huskymania.

The men's 82-73 victory over Georgia Tech at the Alamodome on April 5 and the women's 70-61 win over Tennessee at the New Orleans Arena on April 6 established UConn as the nation's collegiate basketball capital and confirmed that Calhoun and Auriemma stand with the elite coaches in NCAA history. Calhoun's second championship in six years places him among only 11 in NCAA history with more than one title and as one of only three active men's coaches to win more than one title, joining Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski. Auriemma's fifth title — and fourth in five years — came at the expense of Pat Summit, who has won six championships and whose record of three consecutive titles was matched.

The coaches say their student-athletes provided both support and incentive to one another during the long season of high expectations. Calhoun says the players from the men's and women's teams have often been close, because they share common experiences as students and a passion for the sport. "Over the last couple of years these particular teams have probably been tighter," he says "They shared something in common: Each wanted to win their own championship, but the bonus would be if both won."

"I caught it in the training room," Auriemma says. "You could hear a lot of talk back and forth about who was going to do what. Maybe Ben Gordon or Rashad Anderson was saying something, or Diana and Jessica Moore were saying something. There was a certain amount of understanding what each group was going through, so the highs became community highs and the lows became community lows."

While each team's season played out independently, they found more common ground with turning points late in the year, which the coaches say focused their teams for whatever remained in their respective seasons. For the men, it came on Feb. 18 in the Hartford Civic Center during a 76-63 win over Miami. For the women, it was the stunning 73-70 loss to Boston College in the Big East tournament in Hartford on March 8.

The Miami game gave the Huskies their 20th win of the year, but Calhoun felt his team had played without passion. Always vocal and animated, the coach stomped his way across the sidelines during the game, imploring his team to show some emotion. In the locker room after the game, he threw down a challenge, asking to see some fire from his players.

"I told them I'd coached nearly a thousand games, heard the ball bounce a million times and heard a lot of whistles, but I can still display emotion," Calhoun says, recalling his remarks. "We just did our job and won this game, but we weren't going to beat Duke later on by just doing our job."

Calhoun's team responded. They played with intensity for the rest of the regular season and then marched through the Big East and NCAA tournaments to the championship, winning often by wide margins and then nipping Duke by a single point in the national semi-final game.

Photo by AP/Wide World

Lady Huskies Ann Strother and Maria Conlon.

Meanwhile the women's team played the season trying to duplicate what it had achieved the year before, when no one expected UConn to survive the loss of four of the best student-athletes to ever play for Auriemma. "The whole season became a struggle to get through without expectations weighing you down," he says. "It was like running a marathon for the first 20 miles with a 50-pound pack on your back and thinking, I'm never going to be able to do this."

Auriemma says the way that the Big East tournament ended strongly affected the team. "We played great and still got beat. It had a profound effect on them," he says. "The team handled that loss differently than any other during the year. There was a certain resolve. Some of the things they were saying and the way they were carrying themselves changed."

The women started the NCAA tournament on the first day of spring by crushing Pennsylvania by a score of 91-55 in Bridgeport, Conn., and capped the East Regional with a 66-49 win over Penn State at the Hartford Civic Center before heading to New Orleans and the Final Four.

The coaches wanted their players to enjoy the excitement surrounding the Final Four city while still focusing attention on the business at hand. In San Antonio, Calhoun drew upon his experience from the 1999 championship in St. Petersburg, Fla. "It's part of my strategy to keep the team together," he says. "I actually soften up a little bit during that period of time to try and create confidence. We've done all we can. We weren't going to change who were and what we did. We try to make it a happy atmosphere. I had my five grandchildren, two sons, my daughters-in-law and my wife with me. That was really a respite for me."

Throughout the NCAA tournament, the women's team followed its tradition of watching the men's tournament games on television together in Auriemma's hotel room. With both teams in their respective Final Four games, the gathering in New Orleans on the night of the men's championship victory had an added dimension.

"We knew what was going on back in Storrs, that the anticipation level was at an all time high," Auriemma says.

"In preparing for our games, there was this feeling of we better win. You could sense the guys were going to win. I don't think there was any doubt in the kids' minds that if the guys won the national championship, they were going to win too."

Nearly 300,000 people attended a parade through the streets of downtown Hartford on April 18 to honor the Huskies dual NCAA championships

Emeka Okafor accepts congratulations from President Bush during Champion's Day at the White House in Washington, D.C.

The state's overwhelming response to the Huskies' accomplishments was no less stunning than the historic dual championships. Nearly 300,000 people jammed the streets of Hartford on April 18 for a parade honoring the teams. Officials described it as the largest outdoor event in the state capital since veterans returned home from World War II nearly half a century ago.

The coaches view their historic achievement from the perspective of how it will continue to enhance UConn's reputation as a national university.

"You want what you have done to have made an impact to help strengthen the University," Calhoun says. "That's what I think has happened. Because we have Sports Center on ESPN, basketball is highlighted, but every time they say 'UConn' it's enhancing the University."

Auriemma notes how the perception of UConn has evolved over the years. "Ten years ago the average high school student around the country didn't associate with the name UConn," he says. "Over the last 10 years the entire University has been transformed. Now you walk into any state in the country and you don't have to explain who we are. They think: National champions, national university. The perception of the University has changed tremendously. It's really incredible the parallel lives our basketball programs and the University have lived over the last 10 years."

Following the NCAA tournament, the story of UConn's academic as well as athletic success was highlighted in prominent national media such as The New York Times, Bloomberg News and the Associated Press, among others.

"At no time in my life have I ever been more happy about the decision I made to come to UConn," says Calhoun. "I think anyone who is here thinks UConn is a special destination for young people. It's allowed us to go to a student like Emeka Okafor and say: 'I know you're being recruited by Vanderbilt and Stanford, but we can more than compete with our finance program academically.' It should always be the UConn academic experience, and then it's our basketball program."

Auriemma says the demand for excellence is being met. "This is a state where there's a demand from the people who live here and from the legislature that the University will be the absolute best in every area — faculty, staff, resources and athletics," he says. "There's no reason why the University of Connecticut should not be listed among the nation's top public universities."

Since arriving at UConn nearly 20 years ago, Calhoun and Auriemma have been known not only for their achievements on the basketball court but also for their advocacy of UConn off the court and their personal involvement with enhancing University programs. Auriemma's generous support of the Homer Babbidge Library was recognized in 1998 with the naming of a room in honor of the Auriemma family, and he was the keynote speaker in 2003 during the library's 25th anniversary celebration. The Calhoun family's long and prominent advocacy and support for cardiology research and clinical care at the UConn Health Center was recognized earlier this year with the dedication of the Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center.

"The bottom line is the fact we now are a first choice for so many kids, that we are so competitive for top students," Calhoun says. "I keep track of those things. They're important to me."

Adds Auriemma: "The only thing I've ever wanted since I've been at the University of Connecticut is there to be absolutely no differentiation in quality between the basketball program and the University. Now, we've got a first-rate university and great basketball. That's the ultimate national championship."