A hoops era ends for the Hurleys
St. Anthony High in N.J. closes its doors for good
JERSEY CITY — It is early May, and the boys are back. Bob’s boys. Some never left.
Bob Hurley rises from his seat for the first time in nearly two hours. He doesn’t want to get up, and it makes sense. His knees are stiff. He shakes them out and makes his way over to a group of his kids. They range in age, some on the precipice of adulthood, some into their fourth decades.
They surround him for a picture inside Jersey City’s Community Education Resource Center, and the ones closest to him, those four or five inches taller, place a hand lovingly on his shoulder.
Minutes later, they file out for a celebration – some would call it a wake – to honor a safe haven, Jersey City’s St. Anthony High School, an oasis of hope in a desert of despair that has nonetheless produced 28 state championships, more than 1,000 wins, Bobby and Danny Hurley and Kenny Anderson, five other NBA first-round picks and countless others.
Wearing his familiar sleeveless fleece pullover, Hurley, one of four high school basketball coaches elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, bids goodbye. His shoulders are slumped. His frown is curled.
He walks out of the gym carrying two framed black-and-white pictures of the good old days, when they all went to White Eagle Hall to set up the bingo tables. A gym attendant nods, reverently, seemingly unaware of the magnitude of this roundball reunion, which Danny Hurley initiated.
“This is our last day,” Bob Hurley says, his voice sullen. “Yeah.” He shakes his head. “Yeah.”
Bobby Hurley’s roots
To understand the coach that Bobby Hurley would become – head coach of the Arizona State Sun Devils – it is best to understand from where he came.
St. Anthony’s sits at 175 8th Street in Jersey City, a valuable piece of real estate despite the city’s financial struggles. Nearly 26 percent of Jersey City residents fall below the poverty line, 11 percent higher than the state average, according to City-Data.com. Most of the Friars come from meager means;
the school’s $6,100 tuition is far below the approximately $14,000 it costs to educate each student, Hurley said.
For years, decades even, the school has had to fundraise in the millions to offset the costs of providing for its students. If most of the Friars’ basketball games were over by the first timeout, the endless fundraising lasted until the final buzzer.
By spring this year, the writing was on the wall. Bob Hurley said the local archdiocese had imposed stricter regulations – enrollment figures the school could not hit, a $500,000 endowment for 2018-19 that appeared unattainable – and, he said, “Look, we were just trying to get to the finish line this year.”
On a Wednesday in April, he knew it was over.
“We knew it was in trouble more so than in the past,” said Bobby, Bob and Chris Hurley’s eldest child. “But when it came to the final result, it hit home pretty hard for all of us who had so many memories there.
“It felt like a part of me was gone.”
“It was always a dream of mine to play at St. Anthony’s. It was something that meant a lot to our family . ... ” BOBBY HURLEY ASU BASKETBALL COACH, ON PLAYING HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL FOR HIS FATHER AT ST. ANTHONY’S
Living the dream
A lean, 6-foot-6 walking and talking basketball encyclopedia, Tom Konchalski grabs your hand and shakes it like a cleanup hitter holds on to his favorite bat. He has surveyed the Northeast basketball scene for decades. His “High School Basketball Illustrated” scouting report is a bible to college coaches across the country and he recalls with remarkable precision the young Bobby Hurley’s basketball beginnings.
“He didn’t come into St. Anthony’s with a Kenny Anderson reputation,” Konchalski said. “He wasn’t the anointed one. He started out on JV his freshman year, and his father moved him up after they won the Johnstown Tournament – beat Mackin from D.C. in the finals – but Mackin had pressed them and turned them over, and even though they beat Mackin, his father saw they needed another guard.
“His first game he played on varsity was January 6, a Tuesday night against Snyder High School. He was on the bench! His father didn’t even start him!”
The young Bobby Hurley was a sideline sponge. He was a ballboy for the Friars whose heroes were not NBA stars like Jordan and Bird, but St. Anthony’s stars like David Rivers and Kenny Wilson.
He was only 5-4 going into high school, but he had the skills. And he had a dream. Even though his mother, Chris, wanted him to go to Jersey City’s St. Peter’s Prep, which boasts one of the finest educational programs in the state, then and now, Hurley wanted to play for Dad.
“It was always a dream of mine to play at St. Anthony’s,” said Bobby, who would grow six inches during high school, big enough to get recruited by Mike Krzyzewski and Duke. “It was something that meant a lot to our family. I did the stats; every Friday night, I set up the bingo tables and every Sunday I put them back away. I did that for 10 years.”
It was a dream descended onto his brother, Danny, now the head coach at Rhode Island.
“It was all about watching Bobby,” Danny Hurley said. “Most of my sports heroes were the guys like David Rivers and Randy Johnson, Kenny Wilson. These were legends in Jersey City. It seemed farfetched I could wear the same uniform. Until I watched Bobby do it. “I said I may be able to do this, too.” Danny found much success at St. Anthony’s, but it’s hard to rival the success Bobby had in high school and beyond.
“Since he joined varsity, his fouryear record was 115-5,” said Konchalski, the encyclopedia. “He had arguably as good a high school and college career as any guard who ever played the game. For his four years in high school, he played in the last game he could play, and won it. His first three years at Duke, played in the last game. First time, gets blown out against UNLV, and the next two years he wins it. Seven years in a row, plays in the final game, wins six.”
Closing for good
And now, it’s over. The school is closed, and with it, the dreams.
Bob Hurley will continue to coach; he is discussing with city leaders a basketball-and-life training program at the rec center, but after 45 years, he’ll no longer be on the sidelines, guiding the Friars.
On this mid-May evening, the sun is finally beginning to set as he walks out of the gym and leaves for the refurbished White Eagle Hall, no longer a basketball sanctuary, but a wood-paneled dining hall, far removed from the squeaky shoes and dripping sweat of the past. He exits the gym and sighs. It’s starting to get dark, in Jersey City, and all over.