A random knock on Ben Kantor’s dorm room door changed his life.

He was a sophomore finance major at the University of Illinois when the women’s basketball team was going door-to-door looking for practice players.

Three years later, instead of heading to law school, Kantor was balancing his time working 20 hours a week at a local Irish pub to make ends meet while working with the Illinois women’s basketball team, without pay, learning what it took to become a video coordinator.

Some nights he even slept on his brother’s couch while he waited for his first real job in the collegiate basketball world.

Yet, Kantor never grew tired of putting in the long days and hard work. He knew he would never be done learning.

That thirst to always better himself motivates him even now, 17 years later. He’s spent the majority of his career in a support-staff role on various collegiate women’s basketball teams, always observing and taking note of how to help coaches and best prepare each team.

It’s because of that passion that UConn women’s basketball head coach Geno Auriemma promoted Kantor this summer from being the program’s longtime video coordinator to a full-time assistant coach with the Huskies.

Kantor is the second male assistant coach under Auriemma’s tenure in Storrs and he’s ready for the challenge. As someone who’s comfortable with the grind that it takes to be great, he’s excited to learn under the best to ever do it and take this next step in his career.

“To know that they have enough confidence in me to put me in this position and feel good enough that I can help them and help the team and help the staff and also want to help me grow in this part of my career, it means the world to me,” Kantor told Hearst CT Media. “I’m forever grateful to Coach Auriemma and the rest of the staff just for believing in me and having this confidence.”