Saturday, August 14, 2010
HOW TO COACH LIKE A HURLEY
As Father Bob Heads to the Hall of Fame,
Sons Dan and Bobby Take the Torch; ‘His Job Doesn’t Stop’
By BEN COHEN
STATEN ISLAND — Bob Hurley will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend, putting him in the esteemed ranks of players such as Karl Marlone, Scottie Pippen and the entire 1992 Dream Team.
This is hardly a surprise in Jersey City, home of St. Anthony’s High School, where Mr. Hurley, the school’s longtime coach, has won almost 1,000 games in 38 years.
What may be more startling about the honor is the fact that it persuaded Mr. Hurley to go clothes shopping.
For all his success in basketball, no one is quick to rave about Mr. Hurley’s sartorial taste. The 63-year-old, white-haired coach usually paces the sidelines in a sweater vest over a short-sleeve shirt—he sweats up a storm otherwise, he said—so the recent spree was something of a shock. “I actually bought two suits for the event,” Mr. Hurley admitted.
While it’s not basketball season, Mr. Hurley’s calendar is packed. On Thursday, he led a two-hour coaching clinic at the Boys and Girls Club in Springfield, Mass. then, before a dinner, he attended a birthday party for one of his grandchildren. There was a pep rally at City Hall on Friday. The weekend concludes with the induction ceremony and ring presentation Saturday at Mohegan Sun.
Mr. Hurley’s sons, Dan and Bobby, will be by his side through it all — the trip caps a hectic four months for the brothers. Bobby, a two-time national champion at Duke, is still the NCAA’s record holder for career assists. Dan helped Seton Hall to the Sweet 16 in the early 1990s. A small, framed photo of Dan and Bobby matching up in a 1992 NCAA tournament game hangs just inside the threshold of Dan’s office. They’re older now, with salt-and-pepper specks in their hair.
In April, Dan was named head coach at Wagner College — his first college head-coaching gig — and he hired Bobby, who had never coached at that level, as his top assistant. Now they’re intent on using their family’s name, which is ubiquitous in basketball circles, and they’ll make sure to bask in their father’s glow this weekend.
“We’re pleading with him to wear a Wagner green suit and maybe try to get a Wagner-basketball-something on his jacket,” Dan said Tuesday on the Wagner campus, which has a sprawling view of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. “We’re telling AAU coaches to watch the induction, because if they give us a pan shot, I’ll be putting the Wagner ‘W’ up with my hands.”
“It doesn’t surprise me at all!” the elder Mr. Hurley quipped. “Whatever they can get out of me, they’re going to squeeze it out. I’m surprised they don’t have me wearing a green Wagner tie.”
Mr. Hurley’s career accomplishments give his sons plenty to strive for. He’s just the third high-school coach to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. He’s won 25 state championships and three national titles. He’s twice been named the national coach of the year.
Mr. Hurley was immortalized in the 2005 bestselling book “The Miracle of St. Anthony” which chronicled a season with Mr. Hurley’s team and in a 2010 documentary, “The Street Stops Here.” He’s arguably the best-known and most-respected high-school coach in the country.
And it’s precisely because Mr. Hurley never left the Jersey City school, despite plenty of offers, that he has an outside shot at breaking the all-time wins record—he needs 290, if you’re scoring at home.
In addition to a litany of former stars, Mr. Hurley’s current players will accompany him to Massachusetts this weekend. On Sunday morning, hours after he receives his commemorative ring, he’ll head back to Jersey City with them to prepare for a team camp in the Poconos.
“They need me there,” Mr. Hurley said of why he is hurrying back home. “I can help them get things done, and the kids need me as a coach. It’s one of those situations that’s different from anything Danny or Bobby would come across.”
After an assistant-coaching stint at Rutgers, Dan spent the last nine years following in his father’s footsteps, turning St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark into a powerhouse.
He churned out four McDonald’s All-Americans and two NBA players. He flirted with college jobs toward the end and this April, the same weekend it was announced his father was headed to the Hall, the Wagner job came along.
Charged with reviving the Seahawks, who won five games last year but went to the NCAA tournament in 2003, Dan assembled a staff that included Bobby. They immediately dove into the thick of the recruiting season, scoring three commitments. Then they hit the road in July, traveling the country from Reading, Pa., to Las Vegas, watching summer showcases from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m., on some nights. If they ate a full meal, it was a good day.
The biggest difference for Dan and Bobby, they said, was the time discrepancy. Before he had a Wagner-issued BlackBerry, Bobby, who relocated his family from Florida, exceeded his monthly plan by 1,200 minutes, and he lost about 20 pounds in his first weeks on the job.
In another, more typical summer as a high-school coach, Dan said, “I’d be throwing a little bit more [batting practice] to my kids.”
Once the Hurleys made it to August, they retreated to the Florida Keys with their extended family for what was meant to be four days of R&R. It quickly devolved into a prolonged phone-a-thon. “Our family members were giving us death stares, because we’re on the phones with high-school and AAU coaches, offering scholarships, doing all kinds of stuff,” Dan said. “That’s when it hit home that this job doesn’t stop.”
Mr. Hurley planned to use his acceptance speech to reinforce a hard-earned message that high-school basketball is the “purest form” of the sport. He wants the Hall of Fame to keep looking closely at the accomplishments of high-school coaches. Earlier in the week, he said he was nervous about the speech, which his wife, Chris, made him practice in the car Wednesday.
Dan and Bobby, meanwhile, were anticipating the pomp just as much as their father. Bobby was saving his weekly calls to recruits until closer to the weekend, so he could remind them to tune into the ceremony. At the very least, parts of the celebration would be welcome respites from their BlackBerries.
“The phone’s gotta go off,” Dan said earlier this week. “We’re going to talk about it today, but the phone will be off — at least during the enshrinement ceremony.”
What about switching it to vibrate?
“Well,” he quickly added, “I think we can text.”
“Can’t text,” Bobby said, referring to the NCAA bylaw.
“So we’ll be in a tough spot,” Dan joked. “Hopefully, we won’t need to be on the phone, because all the kids will be watching it.”
WSJ profiles family of Wagner basketball coaches Dan and Bobby Hurley
September 9, 2010
Text Size
