Dan HURLEY
With the college basketball season getting set to tip off, new UConn coach Dan Hurley took a timeout for some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: Describe the ideal Dan Hurley basketball player.
A: Athletic … hard-working … unselfish … attacking … relentless … super-competitive … all about winning.
Q: What do you want the oncourt personality of your team to be?
A: Incredibly tough … incredibly passionate … intense … we’re relentlessly attacking … fearless.
Q: How do you motivate?
A: I am personally motivated, still motivated by fear of failure, because I want to be great so bad. I motivate my players by trying to make them understand that most of the guys that I coach don’t have a trust fund waiting for them when they get older, so they have to really use basketball as a vehicle to create a successful life for themselves. That doesn’t necessarily mean making the NBA or play professional basketball, but they better develop the work ethic and the tools and skills you need to be successful.
Q: What don’t you tolerate?
A: I don’t tolerate cutting corners. I don’t tolerate lack of enthusiasm or energy. I don’t tolerate a student-athlete in my program discarding or throwing away an opportunity to get an education because the world takes advantage of stupid people.
Q: What are some inspirational sayings you like?
A: Success leaves clues … your struggles become your strengths … greatness fears no consequence … the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.
Q: Which coaches in other sports do you admire?
A: Bill Walsh, because of his preparation and his progressive thinking. Joe Torre, because of how relaxed his team played in big moments because they knew he had their back.
Q: What is your definition of leadership?
A: Practice what you preach. Setting a tone, setting the example every single day. I don’t ask anything of myself that I don’t ask of my staff or my players. Having great habits personally, and showing up consistently with the same effort, intensity and energy level every day, and then also being the type of person in terms of decisions I make in my personal life that people respect.
Q: Why do you think you are a
program fifixer? A: I was a broken kid in college. I was lost at times … incredibly dark mental places at times. So I had to fix myself at a stage of my life, and now I’m kind of addicted to doing it.
Q: What does it take to be a fixer of a basketball program?
A: As an individual, for me it was having the self-awareness to identify the areas that are weak and need improvement. And as a fixer of programs, it’s being able to identify why a program has failed, and then understanding where the university is located, what conference it’s in, and then how you need to proceed with everything that you need to fix it. What type of people do you have to hire? What areas do you have to recruit? What play
style is gonna fit?
Q: When you quit the Seton Hall team, what was the single darkest moment?
A: Getting back to the dorm after the game, afterf I met withh my bbrother h and a couple of our friends that we grew up with in Jersey City, and then being alone. I’ll never forget being alone in that dorm room for a while, like a day-and-a-half before I let anyone contact me. … Driving in my car by myself at night, just wondering about life.
Q: What snapped you out of it?
A: [Brother] Bob’s [1993 car] accident. Just gave me the perspective I needed.
Q: How scared were you when you heard about your brother’s accident?
A: [I was] 90 percent scared for him, but Bob’s a different animal. I knew deep down inside that nothing (laugh) … like he’s the Terminator. So deep down inside I knew Bob was gonna pull through. If that accident at that moment didn’t take his life, there was no way that a guy that tough was gonna have it taken from him in the hospital. I also remember probably a 10 percent guilt thing, in the sense like I’ve got nothing going right now, I’m a bad Seton Hall basketball player, that should have been me, like I would have been better off in the
accident because I’m not ddoing anythingh withh my llife f anyway.
Q: What do you remember him telling you when you confided in him after the St. John’s game that you wanted to quit?
A: It was just kind of a look and, “Yeah man, I get it, you need to take care of yourself, this basketball thing is not worth it. You’re killing yourself.” Q: How big of a partier were you? y A: I got after it good. My parents ran a pretty tight ship, we didn’t go out a lot in high school. So, we got to college and I got all this freedom, and I tried to make up for lost time (laugh). Q: If you could pick the brain of one coach in basketball history, who would it be? A: John Wooden. Q: What would you ask him? A: Everything from how he devised his practice plan to questions about his tactical style of play to how he managed himself, the pressures of failure and success, how he stayed so entrenched in his principles from when he was a high school coach to the greatest coach of all time.
Q: What did you pick up from your father, legendary St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley Sr.?
A: All of his success came about because of his great service to his players, he served them incredibly well every single day as someone who not only tried to make ’em a great basketball player, but he understood his role that he also had a responsibility to help raise kids. The better he served his players, the better that they would play for him, and incredibly, incredibly detail-oriented.
Q: What would you want your father to say about you as a coach?
A: That my players, the way they showed up on game night, they looked like they loved playing for me and that they believe in me, that there’s a real brotherhood on the court from player to player.
Q: How are you and your brother Bob different?
A: We’re so similar in so many ways. We picked up so much of our belief system from our dad. Bob’s more intense than me, and I have a lighter side. My lighter side’s a little bit lighter, and Bob had that extra bit of intensity.
Q: Would coaching in the NBA ever appeal to you?
A: Yeah, I tell every recruit that I’m a young and hungry coach. As they aspire one day to play at the NBA level, I would love someday, way down the road, hopefully after accomplishing some amazing things here, I would love to be an NBA coach.
Q: What is your favorite St. Anthony memory?
A: Hawaii, my brother’s junior year playing Tolentine High School with the late Malik Sealy and “Red” Autry and Brian Reese, two legendary programs playing in the championship game, I think it was No. 1 versus No. 2 in the country, and then the good guys came out on top, and that was my brother’s, I think, coming-out party on a national scale. The second moment would be, my brother was a senior and I was a sophomore, checking into the game at the end of the state championship, as Bob was checking out to head off to Duke, I was checking in to take over (chuckle) his point guard responsibilities.
Q: Describe your father’s 1989 championship St. Anthony team with you and your brother.
A: That was the best high school team in the history of New Jersey … maybe the metropolitan area — sorry, Kareem [Lew Alcindor, Power Memorial].
Q: What do you remember about your first game ever as a head coach?
A: Sitting on the toilet like four, five times that day (laugh). Being in a complete panic all day long. Man, that head seat is super scary.
Q: Fatherhood.
A: It made me a far better coach, especially as my boys have gotten older. My Danny is a sophomore at Seton Hall — it went so well for me there, I sent him (laugh). And then my youngest is a junior in high school. As they’ve matured to the high school/college age and got into their teenage years, it’s helped me understand the kids I’m coaching better. It’s helped me just understand my responsibility’s not just to win games, but to help raise kids.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: JFK, Joe Namath, Muhammad Ali.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: “Cinderella Man.” I made my teams at Wagner and Rhode Island watch that movie, especially when we were on the climb back up. You know what? You just reminded me, I need to make these guys watch that movie.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Matunuck Oyster Bar in Rhode Island, get the oysters and salmon. It’s the best place I’ve ever eaten at.
Q: What are your expectations for UConn this season?
A: Obviously we’re rebuilding a program that’s won 30 games in two years. But I don’t go into any season with any team or any program not striving to try to find a way to compete for a championship and for an opportunity to play in March. That’s just the way I’m wired.
Q: What would you want UConn fans to say about you?
A: They’re thrilled to have me, that they love watching our teams play, that my teams remind them of some of the older teams that played here when Coach Calhoun had it going, and when Kevin (Ollie) won his championship. Q: Do you visualize standing on a ladder, cutting down the nets on the last Monday night? A: Absolutely, that’s why I took this job, that’s why I’m in Storrs. Yeah, I visualize success. I’ve just started to understand the power of being a more positive thinker, and how you do need to visualize successful events and go into these critical moments and competitions with tremendous confidence in your players.
Q: Actually, you are Cinderella Man.
A: As a player, it got brutal at times for me in college, and I had to kind of fight back and finish on my feet those last two years. And then, as a hot-shot young assistant college coach, I got knocked on my butt and got fired at Rutgers and had to start over at high school. Just nine years ago, I was driving a yellow mini-cheese bus around to high school games, and now I’m head coach of one of the most storied programs in college basketball, so yeah man, this is like … (laugh) I’m Cinderella Man!