DeLauro Congratulates UConn Women's Basketball Team

Madam Speaker, I rise with enormous pride to congratulate the UConn women's basketball team on a season of unprecedented athletic achievement. Under Coach Geno Auriemma, the Huskies not only won their second consecutive NCAA title this month, they concluded their second consecutive perfect season.

In fact, the Huskies have now won 78 straight games in a row – only ten below the record set in men's basketball by the teams under UCLA's John Wooden in the 1970's – and have won every single one of them, with the exception of their gritty 53-47 title defense against Stanford, by double digits. In so doing, the University of Connecticut Women's team has eclipsed the previous record of 70 wins in a row, held by the Huskies since 2003.

Winning 78 games in a row in any sport is no small feat, and it takes more than talent to accomplish. Such a record takes perseverance, sacrifice, and a commitment to the team ideal, and the women of UConn have shown each in surpassing measure.

These young athletes are not role models to generations of women because they are winners – They are winners because they are role models. They have shown that, through hard work and dedication to a common goal, anything is possible. I congratulate them on two years of amazing victories, and I look forward to seeing them in action again next season.