Storrs – College athletes, driven though they may be, are still mostly kids. Doing all those things kids like to do. Which would not make Buffalo the garden spot for most youngins, who may prefer warmer weather over freezing their ascots off walking to class or the dining hall.

All of which renders coach Felicia Legette-Jack’s accomplishments at Buffalo fodder for a standing ovation. She’s turned the Bulls into winners, a Sweet 16 team last year and with the opportunity for a repeat trip this year, the Davids with the slingshots Sunday night at Gampel Pavilion.

Back to the Buffalo thing. We know of good wings, the Bills and baby, it’s cold outside. And yet Legette-Jack, men’s basketball coach Nate Oats and football coach Lance Leipold have no issues getting kids interested in running with the Bulls.

Legette-Jack, always armed with a sense of humor and an effortlessly cool presence, delivered several amusing answers to the whole Buffalo/weather thing at Saturday’s news conferences. And then levels of depth and reflectiveness that would make anybody want to play for her, no matter if it’s in Aruba or Antarctica.

Legette-Jack personifies the necessity of failure as it relates to success. She’s lived it. And she teaches it. And dismiss this sentence as lunacy if you’d like, but she sure carries herself as someone who could be on the list to replace Geno when he decides to retire.

First, the weather in Buffalo:

“It’s 70 degrees in our gym every single day. It went down to 69 one time and I almost had a fit,” she said. “If it’s between us and Miami and the reason (a recruit) choose(s) Miami is warmer weather, then I don’t want you. You’re going to the beach. I want gym rats. I love leaving at 11 at night and seeing so many athletes still in the gym working on their craft because it’s cold outside. … UConn’s not the warmest place either. And certainly not the easiest place to get to. Our hotel is an hour away.”

She needn’t remind Geno.

“They must be doing something right at Buffalo,” he said. “It just goes to show you it’s not just about the location of a place. It’s not about the weather or the environment. Schools that have all that try to use that against schools that don’t. It’s about the people. And what kind of experience you want to have and the kind of people you want to have that experience with.

“I remember people in the beginning talking about, ‘what’s in Storrs? There’s nothing to do up there.’ That never seemed to affect the kids we wanted.”

Legette-Jack’s news conference Saturday turned into an unwitting Buffalo infomercial. Just by being who she is, spinning life advice into a lead-in to a basketball game. Practically Geno-esque.

“These young ladies understand they matter. They’re good enough every single day to become what they want to become. That’s the message on a daily basis,” she said. “We’re always going to have two things we’re going to be dealing with: courage and fear. Whenever you do something for the first time, whether as an adult or a kid, you will fear a lot because you care so much about the success you want to get. But then courage comes in. I ask our players every day to handle both of them. But let courage win.”

Is Legette-Jack’s message getting absorbed? Listen to her best player, senior Cierra Dillard, a transfer from UMass after the 2016 season. A young woman who has found her salvation in upstate New York playing for a woman who clearly knows jack.

“Two years ago, I was not at this point in my life. I think everybody goes through that at a point in their life, not only their career, but their lives, where they hit a brick wall,” Dillard said. “Is this for me? Am I doing this right? Should I continue this? I’m glad I stuck with it. I’m glad God has put me in this position to express my way of life, my feelings and my character.”

Legette-Jack said this of Dillard:

“Her legacy is the same as mine. We failed. We failed in our confidence and in our jobs. She failed at UMass. I failed at my last job (Indiana.) She got a chance to begin again. She became. She grew. She prospered. That’s all we want from our kids. Know it’s OK to fail.

“Sometimes, you fail publicly. Sometimes, it’s going to hurt and there are going to be tears in front of people. It’s OK standing in it. You stand in it. She stood in it and told her truth. I said, ‘just give me a chance. If it doesn’t work, I’ll walk you home. We’ll walk down that street together.’ She allowed me in. God gave me some energy to give to this young lady and she became one of the best players in the country. They’re going to see what failure looks like when it turns into growth.”

Read that line again: They’re going to see what failure looks like when it turns to growth. Oh, if only we were all so fortunate to learn such a lesson.

But then, we would if we could all play for Felicia Legette-Jack.

Maybe it’s not so cold up there after all.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro