A NEW SCHOOL FOR OLD SCHOOL COACH
Hurley brings passion and high expectations of his players as he works to turn program around
STORRS – He has crisscrossed Connecticut for seven months now, speaking from podiums here and there, interviewing one-on-one, always dropping clues to a complex personality. From morning meditation to wild man on the practice court to cheerleader on game day; from nearly being driven from basketball to escape his obsession to demanding his players be “as obsessed with the game as I am,” Dan Hurley can be a bundle of surprises, of contradictions.
“Danny, at least publicly, sees the glass half-empty all the time,” says Father Edwin Leahy, who gave Hurley his first head coaching job, at St. Benedict’s Prep. “What you have to work at seeing is his heart. He’s got a very sensitive heart, but he doesn’t show it easily.”
To the players he coaches, he can be “like sandpaper,” Leahy says. Yet Hurley brings the utmost confidence — and joy — to the task of rebuilding UConn men’s basketball.
“We don’t want hangdog face,” Hurley says. “It’s an old cartoon. You can Google it. I sent it into group chat early with our team. We don’t want any hangdog faces. When coming off three or four days in a row of practice, and it’s day five, I don’t want hangdog looks. I want guys who are smiling, happy to be on the court. When they get on the practice floor, if you’re a real baller, that should be the best part of your day. No hangdog looks ever.”
So perhaps the way to get one’s mind around what the Huskies are about to become, this much should be digested: He kicked Tristan Thompson off his high school team. And today, that Tristan Thompson, in the NBA with the Cavaliers, never forgets to text Hurley’s wife, Andrea, on her birthday and Mother’s Day.
“I’m old school by nature,” says Hurley, as he begins to tell the story. “I’ve got old school values as a coach. I expect players to carry themselves in a professional manner and accept coaching, to not take coaching personally, but take it seriously.
“… That situation with Tristan, he’s a great kid that I had an amazing relationship with. Big brother, uncle, fatherly. As a young head coach, my ego got the best of me that day. I inflamed the situation. I should have given him kind of a pass because he was dealing with a lot of different things there. But I’m old school, and I have standards for how I want my players to carry themselves.”
It happened on Feb. 10, 2009. St. Benedict’s Prep had won its first 19 games and was ranked No.1 in the nation, then lost two in a row. Everyone was frustrated, but they were beating Passaic Tech.
“What happened was, we were beating a team up pretty good,” Leahy remembers, “and Tristan came down the floor and shot a 3, and I don’t believe he shot a 3 all year. He walked back on defense. Bad idea with Danny. So Danny took him out of the game, and as he came out of the game, he was muttering something. He walks by Danny and he’s mumbling, and Danny said, ‘You’re not talking to me, are you?’ And he was trying to fake it like he wasn’t talking to Danny, but he really was. And Danny told him, ‘Go sit on the end of the bench. I can’t coach you.’”
Thompson, 6 feet 9, changed into street clothes and never wore a St. Benedict’s uniform again. Hurley told local reporters it was “public insubordination.” After the semester, Thompson transferred to Findlay Prep in Nevada, and went on to Texas and the NBA.
“He didn’t handle my aggressive coaching,” Hurley says. “He got real mouthy, and I didn’t like that, and I turned it up, and he didn’t respond well. You don’t show up your coaches; you accept your coaching and change, because that’s what
“I’m old school by nature. I’ve got old school values as a coach. I expect players to
carry themselves in a professional manner and accept coaching.”
Dan Hurley