Conor Geary lends personality to UConn basketball games.

Geary, even more importantly, also has perfected the modulation and creative approaches needed as the prevailing voice in UConn basketball arenas. The Huskies’ in-game host for men’s and women’s games in Storrs and Hartford, “GameDay Conor” does more than orchestrate frenzied shirt-toss moments.

He leads cheers, engages with fans, and makes announcements with flair, using loud speakers to stir additional energy into the usual pageantry. Geary’s performance joins the thump of hip-hop music, and the roars and murmurs of crowds exceeding 10,000. He holds the microphone to his mouth and rocks back and forth, creating a roller coaster of sound that has become a steady presence at every UConn game.

“At home, I don’t walk into my kitchen and go, ‘Let’s have a glass of orannnnnnge juuuuuuice!’” Geary said. “It is a role. It’s one that, I think, I fit naturally.”

Geary, 36, is charismatic by nature and even more so, professionally, by necessity. A Manchester native who spent much of his childhood as a stage actor, he has been working UConn games since the 2018-19 season. He is also the in-game host for the Hartford Yard Goats, applying a similar schtick to minor league baseball every summer.

During UConn games, Geary works with a script that is a 20-page skeleton, a condensed version of the event’s complete “run of show” breakdown. There are mandatory sponsorship and marketing pitches, many of them needing to be read verbatim or just about. There’s plenty of room for improvisation, though, opportunities for Geary to create a sight-and-sound platform that makes attending games about more than keeping up with the pace of play and the scoreboard.

“UConn students, what’s going on?!” Geary yelled about eight minutes before tip-off of a recent men’s game, Nov. 27 against New Hampshire at Gampel. “Everybody on your feet! Let’s start things off right!”

Geary led the student-section into the famous “UConn … Huskies” chant. Later it was the U-C-O-N-N chant. For a two-plus hour work window that is particularly chaotic during game timeouts, he came and went from midcourt to a nearby tunnel in preparation for the next announcement, contest, cheer or promotion. Fans, per tradition, stand at the beginning of each half until the Huskies score — or, as goes Geary’s signature, cascading rallying call goes — until the Huskies “Score … ore … ore … ore … ore … ore!”

“This scratches a big itch for me,” said Geary, who has a professional background in food and beverage services, and entertainment. He even worked as the first mascot in Yard Goats history back in 2017, one of his first adult steps into becoming what he is today: A minor celebrity among the most dedicated and present UConn basketball fans, with a rising profile in the Connecticut entertainment field.  

Geary is a contracted temporary special employee at UConn. He’s not making killing doing what he’s known for. There’s no 401K involved, for example. It’s a very visible part-time job. Geary works a Monday-Friday, 9-5 office job in Bridgeport. That’s what pays the bills. But by using a microphone the way Dan Hurley and Geno Auriemma use a clipboard, he is probably establishing a future as a full-time entertainer/host.

In addition to UConn games, Geary has Connecticut Sun games and the NCAA men’s lacrosse national championships at East Hartford’s Rentschler Field and Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. He’s hosted games and events at most well-known Connecticut sports arenas and, more and more, is being hired to run corporate events as a host or auctioneer.

His act isn’t for everybody, because no act is. Geary quickly understood the sinking feeling of having fans call him out on social media during his first season.

“I remember getting tagged — criticism in a generally un-constructive way,” Geary said. “It wasn’t, ‘Modulate your voice.’ It wasn’t, ‘You missed something.’ To have it in a public form and someone be like, ‘You suck,’ in so many words, was something I had never experienced before and I was not at the time prepared to handle that because I didn’t consider myself someone in the public eye, even though I clearly was. It did a few things. I tried harder to engage with people about the job and be more accessible so there wasn’t a barrier. And I had people come to my defense. I say if you have suggestions, I’m open.”

Critics are few, though. Geary has become part of an increasingly successful and vibrant basketball community. He wears a men’s national championship ring on the middle finger of his right hand during games, and his booming voice has been part of the home soundtrack as that program returned to the top of the college basketball mountain. He’s equally energetic at women’s games, leading, for example, “Blue … White …” cheers that divide the arena in a cheering competition. Sure, he once called Auriemma’s team the “Lady Huskies,” a big no-no that he heard about almost immediately in his first season.

Overall, he boosts the entertainment value for the UConn marketing department that he reports, adding a showman’s touch to two elite basketball products. He interacts with many fans at both arenas, too. Some ask for his autograph. 

As a kid in Manchester, Geary was an active member of CAST (Children’s Associated Summer Theater). His family moved to East Hartford when he was in middle school and he graduated from East Catholic High in Manchester in 2005. He grew up a huge fan of both UConn basketball teams but preferred a private out-of-state school for his own education. He studied marking and management with a minor in philosophy at Siena College, graduating in 2009.

From there, Geary found his professional footing in the restaurant business, at different points working in Hartford as a manager at City Steam (where he ran the comedy club, Brew HaHa) on Main Street and Ted’s Montana Grill on Front Street. Dunkin’ Park, home of the Yard Goats, opened in 2017 while Geary and his now-wife were living in Downtown Hartford.

As a surprise for the 60^th birthday of his father Denis, Geary and family members sat in a dugout suite. It was one of the most enjoyable nights of Geary’s life. After the game, he texted Yard Goats executive Tim Restall something to the effect of, “Whenever you have a job that fits what I do, let me know.”

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After the 2017 season, Restall reached out. The Yard Goats wanted to revamp their non-game events at the stadium and needed somebody with a background in food and beverage. Geary was hired as director of event services. In advance of the 2018 season, the Yard Goats were making a change for in-game entertainment. Another team executive on the creative side said to Geary, “You worked in a comedy club, right?”

Yes, he told her.

“She said, ‘Do you know any comedians who would want the job?’”

Geary gave her a few names but, really, he wanted that job — even if it meant 100-hour workweeks because he would maintain his event services role. He was soon named host and, that summer, was noticed and appreciated for the first time by the UConn athletics and marketing departments when he worked a UConn baseball game held at Dunkin’ Park.

UConn approached him about doing football games, but Geary couldn’t commit due to scheduling quirks. Then he was asked to do basketball games.

On-court host Conor Geary during a UConn’s men’s basketball game at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Conn. Monday, Nov. 27, 2023.(Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media Group)

“I can be hired ad hoc, and that was the impetus for creating a business,” said Geary, whose ‘GameDay,’ nickname stuck after a member of the UConn band assigned it to him a few years ago. “I have this platform. I have an incredible series of stages. But what does this mean? Is this just a side gig where I do a two-hour show and I’m done? That really is, at the core, what it is. But it’s grown every year. Throw in a national championship and all of the sudden the visibility has increased and people are surprised to learn that I’m not here full time.

“I have had people recognize me in a way I wasn’t seeking and didn’t predict. I wouldn’t have thought it would turn into this.”

Geary runs his business through a website, gamedayconor.com. He lives in Wethersfield with his wife, Victoria, and their one-year old daughter, Harper Rose. When a UConn game is over, his job is done. He’s walking back toward his car basically three hours after arriving.

There’s so much packed into those three hours. Geary is very particular. He considers the phrasing and tense of every announcement and makes tweaks as needed. He goes back and forth with other members of the event staff about microphone/speaker volume. Geary never says “um.” He’s long past stage fright and much of what he does is muscle memory. Everything comes across naturally, even when it doesn’t feel so. Geary was clutching the night’s script before the New Hampshire game, his focus continually turning to one block of about 200 words.

On-court host Conor Geary during UConn’s men’s basketball game at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Conn. Monday, Nov. 27, 2023. (Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media Group)

“I have a read tonight that I have to memorize between now and when it happens,” Geary said. “I won’t be nervous, but I’ll be more on edge about that than anything else I do because I’ve never done it before. That combination of words has never occurred in my head. When I did the NCAA lacrosse national championship … walking out onto the field at Lincoln Financial, in front of a crowd that is not UConn fans, with a sound system I’ve never used before, saying things for sponsorships that I’ve never had to do before, my knees were going.”

Geary gets in a cardio workout along the way, visiting many sections of the arena. There were beads of sweat on his forehead by the time he returned to the tunnel after racing through the student section to handout vouchers for free wraps at a local restaurant (awarded because New Hampshire missed consecutive free throws) and quickly moving into the area of Section 205 for that daunting read he had to memorize.

“I wanted to pass out,” Geary said — mostly sarcastically.

It had to do with a Chevrolet-sponsored loge suite. He got through it. One would not notice that it wasn’t spoken quite as he intended.

“I didn’t say Chevy right away,” Geary said. “I got it in towards the end. I missed it the first time. Because I’ve never done it before. Was I ultimately worried I was going to screw up the read? No. Was it a little more searching for the right combination? Yes. Did I hit all the points? I did. Did it come across fine? Probably. It was a little out of order from what I had rehearsed.”

Geary had stamped key phrases and words into his mind: brand new Gampel Pavilion loge boxes, friends from Chevy, exclusive, four on the concourse, 10 people, email address for fans to contact.

“I missed ‘Chevy,’ and I think I combined ‘exclusive’ and ‘ten,’” Geary said. “I think I said, ‘This is a great way to enjoy an exclusive area of Gampel Pavilion with up to 10 of your friends.’ Well, that’s actually wrong. It would be up to nine of your friends.”

Nit-picking, no?

“Correct,” he said. “But that snagged in my brain. There was a quarter-second hesitation in combining exclusive and 10 and it was because I realized I had gone out of order in my sequence and I missed Chevy. I got back to Chevy, and it sounded fine. But it was not as seamless as I would have liked.”

Geary’s memory is remarkable. Five UConn students selected from the crowd stood in the tunnel holding signed assumption-of-risk forms just before halftime. They were to participate in “musical basketball,” at halftime, with each player having to make a basket when the music stops before returning to a spots around the midcourt logo.

Geary asked each young man’s name, grade and hometown. He was told once. Quickly. Then he pointed at each and said, “Spencer, Joe, Brad, Alex, Justin. I don’t care if you make a halfcourt shot, a layup … or a slam dunk.”

Geary noted one’s height and shook his head, smiling. Moments later, every participant was introduced flawlessly after Geary readied the crowd.

“My wife will tell you I don’t have a great memory,” Geary said. “The best way I can describe it, I have really good recall. If you asked me their names tomorrow, it’s not like I’d know. I differentiate memory from recall. My talent is my ability to hear something once and go out and regurgitate it in on a microphone in front of 20,000 people.”

This is Geary’s dream job. If he could “rub the lamp,” as he says, it’s all he would do. He’s probably on his way toward that reality. It’s still surreal, so much of it, introducing Ray Allen to an XL Center crowd in Hartford, having Andre Jackson run up to him after the national championship game in Houston and handing him a clipped piece of net.

These are the big memories made possible by harping on the fine details over time.

Like getting a T-shirt to look and feel like a beer can.

“I can hit the second deck if it’s right,” Geary said.