Here is an edition of Sports Illustrated in 2003 featuring the national champion UConn women's basketball team on the cover with the added bonus of John Wooden autographing the issue for UConn coach Geno Auriemma.

Geno Auriemma lives to tell stories and over the course of his Hall of Fame coaching career he certainly doesn't lack for material. But few tales delight him any more than his retelling of the time he spoke at a clinic in Palm Springs, California in between leading the Huskies to its first and second national title and was able to have an audience with legendary UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden.

On Friday as Auriemma met with the media for the final time before his Huskies attempt to tie the NCAA Division I basketball record for consecutive wins set by Wooden's UCLA teams from 1971-74, he had no problems obliging a request to tell his favorite John Wooden story.

"John Wooden has probably met a lot of people in his life, obviously and some young coach at a clinic, he wouldn't remember that," Auriemma said. "We did talk, I should say, I sat there and I just listened. He patted my knee while I talked. It was like listening to your grandfather. Every once in a while he would ask me a question and he would give me an answer. It was 15-20 minutes, I don't know how long and I thought 'wow, I am talking to John Wooden.'

"Then we win the national championship in 2002 and he is asked 'why I like UConn women's basketball.' He has a story in Sports Illustrated. He talked about our unselfish play, how we move without the ball, how it is the way the game used to play and all the good stuff that he admired about the game. Somebody asked him about me and he said 'I never met their coach but he seems like a pleasant young man.' I have always kept that and said lots of people who are nowhere near John Wooden category have called me lots of things other than that but as long as he thinks I am a 'pleasant young man,' I have a lot going for me. I always hold onto that and some day when all those people are yelling at me, I'll say you shouldn't do that, John Wooden thinks I am a 'pleasant young man.' Hope he is putting a good word with God for me now.

Of course Auriemma couldn't stop there. Syracuse men's coach Jim Boeheim, a good friend of Auriemma's was at the same clinic as Auriemma recalls in a manner which can be summed up only as classic Geno Auriemma.

"It was kind of a bittersweet clinic for me. It was kind of the best of times and the worst of times. I got to spend half an hour with John Wooden but I also had to spend a whole weekend with Jim Boeheim."

I asked Geno if he reflected at all on Wooden's death earlier this year as UConn prepares to play Ohio State on Sunday in search of its 88th straight win.

"CD (UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey) and I were just talking about that, if we were fortunate enough to win on Sunday I wish he were alive so he could comment on it. That would put everybody else's comments in perspective."