‘Validation’ for Hurley as Huskies roll ahead
ALBANY — The legendary former St. Anthony’s High School coach sat behind the UConn bench next to his 13-year-old grandson, Gabe, and his wife, Chris, watching his son, Dan, lead the Huskies back to the Sweet 16 with a win over Saint Mary’s on Sunday.
“It’s exciting, it’s intense, nerve-wracking,” Bob Hurley Sr. had told The Post after returning from church. “I know more than the average person who would be there because a) this is my son and b) I coached for
50 years in high school. So I know more. I know when the shoe could drop. I know one play can change the way a game’s going.”
The father had gotten to his seat behind the UConn bench at MVP Arena an hour before tipoff, as he always does on game day.
“I want to be sitting there watching both teams warm up,” Hurley said. “I’m a proud dad. I totally enjoy being there and just watching this whole thing. I’m enjoying this way more than he is, because he’s on a big stage and I’m enjoying watching him be on a big stage.”
And boy, did he ever. Fourth-seeded UConn, cheered on by its boisterous fans, turned up the defensive intensity in the second half and Jordan Hawkins drilled four triples to complement big Adama Sanogo for a 70-55 victory and a berth opposite eighth-seeded Arkansas on Thursday in the West Region in Las Vegas.
Hurley even got to see another grandson, Andrew, dribble away the final seconds.
“Couldn’t be more excited,” he said, now standing and waiting for his son to stop by for hugs and congrats before the postgame interviews. “They’ve got all the pieces right now.”
Gabe gets to go to Las Vegas, too. Asked what he thinks of his uncle, Gabe said: “A maniac, but I love him!”
Chris Hurley: “So proud of him, so proud, so excited!”
Hurley, 75, has watched his younger son build UConn back from the ground floor. A first Sweet 16 for Dan Hurley after two years at Wagner, six years at Rhode Island and five at UConn. A first Sweet 16 for UConn in nine years.
He was asked before the game what a Sweet 16 berth would mean to his son.
“It’s validation of what you’ve been doing,” Hurley said. “You build such relationship with your players. Now you’d love to be able to continue the season. You’re doing whatever you can to just get the guys today to be relaxed, but not too relaxed. And the fine line between being amped up and being too relaxed, you walk it all the time.”
The father speaks openly about the turbulent period in his son’s life when he had to leave Seton Hall to figure out the game of life. Call it Dan Hurley’s Victory Over Himself. “We’re a sum of our experiences, and this trip to where he is now was not an easy trip for him,” the father said. “This was happening when he was 20, 21 years old. He’s 50 now. So a long time ago, he had to fight the demons off of not enjoying something that he truly enjoyed.
“It was the highest level of performance anxiety. He couldn’t relax and let things happen. He was putting so much pressure on himself.” All of the Hurley men have gotten up from a personal rock bottom. Bob Hurley older son, Bobby, now the Arizona State coach, suffered two collapsed lungs, a ruptured trachea, broken ribs, a compression fracture in his back and several injuries to his wrists in a devastating 1993 car wreck that derailed a promising NBA career.
“After Bobby’s accident, Danny had left the Seton Hall team at the time and I developed pneumonia from the stress of this whole experience, and I was out for weeks,” the father said.
It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Dan helped run the practices at St. Anthony’s and rediscovered his love for the game.
“He knew as soon as he got in the gym, he was in his comfort zone,” Hurley said. Now Dan Hurley’s in the Sweet 16. “When you grow up in a household that me and Bob grew up in with my dad,” Dan Hurley said, “it was constantly striving, and it’s always the next thing. You put that type of pressure on yourself. I couldn’t give a s--t about people trolling or being critiqued, it’s part of the business, and we all have a job to do.”
He did the job in the face of the burden of great expectations that comes with UConn basketball. He loosened up this week, and his team loosened up with him. He talked about his fifth Rhode Island team that suffered a bitter loss in the Round of 32 to Oregon in Sacramento.
“So maybe I won’t have as many nightmares about that because that game haunts me,” Hurley said. “It has haunted me. And now I’ll think about it less.”
He’ll think about Las Vegas and a national championship shot instead.