JEFF JACOBS

Bob Hurley Sr. watched his first UConn basketball practice last week. Two of his friends went along for the ride through the New York traffic toward the colorful autumn maples of northeast Connecticut.

A good 150 miles of highway stands between the Werth Family Center in Storrs and the Jersey City apartment he and his wife Chris share near the Hudson River. From there, they can see the Statue of Liberty.

From there, Bob Hurley Sr. has begun to appreciate the huddled masses in Connecticut yearning for a return to college basketball glory. He also loves a great pizza.

“On the way home from practice, we hit Frank Pepe’s in New Haven,” Hurley Sr. said. “When we got there — I had UConn stuff on — somebody waiting to get in began talking to me. I told them I was just up watching practice.

“Someone else heard me. I ended up having two separate conversations just waiting to get a table at Frank Pepe’s. All because I had a UConn jacket on. This just doesn’t happen to me, not based on what you’re wearing.”

Since Dan Hurley was hired in March to resuscitate a program with four national titles in two decades, yet one that had lost its way in recent years under Kevin Ollie, there has been no shortage of comparisons. No, not to his dad. To Jim Calhoun. It is understandable.

Both were hired in Storrs as program builders, undeniably intense and driven. Both bear Irish names and a stinging wit. After some rebounding fail-

ures Friday night in the 96-64 exhibition victory over Division II Southern Connecticut, for instance, Hurley foreshadowed some upcoming drills. “There may be blood,” he said. Deadpan delivery. Everyone laughed. A little nervously.

Yet it is not in the comparisons to Calhoun where we find the depths of Dan Hurley’s basketball soul. It is with another Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer.

There has been no greater high school basketball coach in history than septuagenarian Bob Hurley Sr. The son of a cop, he would become a Jersey City probation officer for 35 years and a coach for 45. His teams at St. Anthony won 28 state titles. He put 150 kids into Division I programs and six first-round picks into the NBA. He had all sorts of chances to leave St. Anthony, which shut its doors in 2017, and he never did. He won nearly 1,200 games and changed at least that many lives.

On this day, he picks up the phone to say he’s just leaving ACME, will open the gym later in the afternoon and starts talking about drills for grammar school kids. Some coach the game. Bob Hurley Sr. loves the game. A peach basket still grows on the streets of Jersey City.

“Danny’s 6 years old, Bobby’s maybe 8 and his father might say at dinner ‘Scheduling is so important,’ ” Calhoun said. “Most guys don’t hear that at the table … Or his dad going over and being that Father Flanagan or that tough drill instructor to get on a kid. They watch this. They grew from it.”

“That’s true, no question,” Hurley Sr. said. “Coaches would come over or college coaches coming to visit. Danny and Bobby (who now coaches at Arizona State) were always around watching. By osmosis, they developed a better feel for the sport than kids their own age.”

In March, as he followed Rhode Island into the NCAA Tournament, Hurley Sr. called Dan a “rising star in the business” in the New York Post. He was right. Days later, at Dan’s in-

troductory UConn news conference at Werth, Bob Sr. looked up and said, “Look at those banners. This is an elite program.” Then he looked over at the UConn players and said, “They need to get bigger.”

Bob Sr. has said this a couple of times now: Dan’s young, but he’s not young in basketball years.

“I think what really helped Danny was running the high school program at St. Benedict’s (in Newark) for nine years,” Hurley said. “They had dormitories. They had international kids. They traveled. There were so many things that were actually closer to college than high school and was a tremendous preparation for what he has done.

“A lot of colleges coaches that go from the ‘suggestion’ seat to the ‘decision’ seat haven’t had that chance to call a quick timeout, make adjustments, all the things you do when you have your own team. He did.”

From the structure of Bob Sr. and Chris and St. Anthony, Dan would end up scoring 1,000 points at Seton Hall. He also went through a dark period in college, one where he temporarily gave up the game, drank, was lost.

“When he got there, the expectations for the team were extremely high,” Hurley Sr. told Hearst Connecticut’s Dave Borges for a recent Connecticut Magazine piece. “The comparisons to his brother (who played at Duke and in the NBA) were just brutal. He was not enjoying being there. The pressure to win was unbearable.”

Counseling helped. A coaching change to George Blaney helped. Meeting the love of his life, Andrea, at Seton Hall was the best thing that ever happened to him.

“I was the oldest in my family,” Bob Sr. said. “I think the oldest out, everyone kind of watches. I have two brothers and a sister. As we got further down the line, each one was more relaxed. Same thing in my house. First time out, Bobby was much more conservative.

“Every child is different. Their personalities are different. They were different type players. Bobby was more of the tradition point guard. Danny had a greater ability to score. One was lefty. One right. What I like is, as coaches, both play to their talent and don’t pigeonhole players.”

Dan has learned to soothe his inner beast the last couple of years in morning meditation, reading, prayer, exercise.

“The intensity is during the couple of hours when you’re on the floor,” Bob Sr. said. “You cannot maintain that your whole life. You may as well be a Trappist monk. Danny is affable, funny, has good stories. He will exaggerate to build drama. He understands relationships. That’s the way he goes. He’s tough on the kids, but they love him.

“He’s realizing now how it is when you have people follow you on a daily basis. There was one newspaper when he coached at Wagner. He talked to Cormac Gordon of the Staten Island Advance. Now, I’m reading two-three stories every day online.”

Bob Sr. will go to as many home games as possible. He’ll go to all the games in the New York area. A big bus trip is planned by the Jersey City guys to Gampel Pavilion on Jan. 25. UConn’s Tarin Smith and Wichita State’s Markis McDuffie played at St. Anthony. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, though, are usually out. There is basketball at the Jersey City Community Education and Recreation Center.

The grammar school kids come in at 3; the high schoolers follow. This is truly grassroots. Skill work before the season. There are house leagues in the winter. All this under the umbrella of The Hurley Family Foundation.

“My wife said when St. Anthony was closing that this would be a critical time in our relationship,” Bob Sr. said. “I was going to be home now and God knows what I’m going to do in the afternoon.”

So he teaches the perfect bounce pass at the same gym he once rented for St. Anthony. Coaching is forever.

“As far as Danny and me, it’s fatherson,” Bob Hurley Sr. said. “We talk family stuff. Jersey stuff. About our favorite teams. I only give my two cents on coaching when asked. Only when asked.”

The great coach laughs.