Kevin Stacom: Dan Hurley and His "Rocket Fuel"
Kevin Stacom, Sports Analyst
Kevin Stacom: Dan Hurley and His "Rocket Fuel"
We can only imagine what the last three or so years have been like for Dan Hurley and his family.
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After a six-year successful stint at URI, commencing in the 2012-2013 season and culminating in 2017- 2018, UConn came calling with an offer in common Rhode Island parlance, he couldn’t refuse.
When Dan Hurley first arrived at Storrs, Connecticut, he was a bit stunned at the level of a reclamation project he had in front of him. Although Kevin Ollie was able to achieve an NCAA title with the remnants of a Jim Calhoun-based team in 2014, about the time Hurley came into power there 5 years later in 2018-2019, UConn was still reeling from the effects of the dissolution of the original Big East, playing in the lackluster American Athletic Conference mostly as a bow to its football program, leaving its basketball program to compete in a league devoid of just about any compelling rivalries.
How could anyone have predicted that after paying his dues for 2 years in that league and the Big East throwing a lifeline to UConn, which they took hold of with both hands, that 3 years later, in the 2022-2023 season, Coach Dan Hurley and company would return the school to ultimate basketball relevance by winning a national title.
To top it off, he went on to be the first coach (in the 2023-2024 season last year) to win back-to-back championships since Billy Donovan did it in 2006 and 2007 in Florida.
From that point on, the drama only intensified as the inevitable NBA interest reared its head with an intense flirtation and exploration of the offer to coach the LA Lakers, which Hurley eventually turned down.
I was able to catch up a bit with Hurley’s assistant coach, Tommy Moore, who has the perspective of working with both Jim Calhoun and Dan Hurley. Tom was able to fill in a lot of the details that characterize coach Hurley’s methods - the level of dedication he expends even after his considerable success - staying around all summer taking advantage like a lot of teams with the NCAA rules of 4 hours a week of practice time stretching it out over 4 or 5 days. Tom said that he is a lot like his Hall of Fame coach father, who imparted upon him his most indelible guiding principle - “You’re there to serve your players. “
Tom further explains that Hurley has the advantage, for the most part, of having always been a head coach from the time he was the head coach at St. Benedict’s High School in Newark, New Jersey (2001-2010). Many coaches’ pathways typically go through the course of starting, for a period of time, as assistants before getting a head position. Hurley has mentioned a few times that that’s how he basically views himself, as a teacher and a coach, and would have probably been content to stay in that realm like his father had it not been for the financial considerations of his growing family forcing him to advance his career path towards where it is now.
Lately, as the national media spotlight has shone upon his coaching style, it’s easy to pass over the substance.
As it relates to this idea, Dan started off with a bang this year, as the team struggled while trying to incorporate four new players in the starting lineup at the Hawaii Tournament amid very unrealistic high expectations due to not factoring in losing four starters to the NBA - Tristan Newton, Cam Spencer, Donovan Clingan, and Stephon Castle.
The media, of course, had a field day with Hurley laying prostrate on the floor in protest to a crucial call not in UConn’s favor. In the same interview mentioned above, with Mad Dog Russo (who, BTW, if anyone could relate to coach Hurley, it would be him), Hurley explains another aspect of his hard-earned level of self-awareness that all this success has brought, as he relates that you think, that after struggling so hard to get where you are, that you would become beloved, “you don’t become beloved.” He knows his UConn fans, for the most part, love the way he coaches and his players mutually love him, but there are others for whom he’s become a target to acquire clicks and eyeballs to benefit them; how a lot of the media will attend a practice and not even take advantage of observing how he’s conducting a practice as he sees them preoccupied with their cell phones and tablets.
This is unfortunate because, as Coach More tells it, he’s never seen anyone conduct a practice knowing better how and when to insert himself to impart the necessary coaching point while at the same time keeping the pace and the intensity of the session going. Tom says Hurley “never misses a trick,” but always keeps the momentum going, that he pushes himself as hard as he pushes everyone around him, players, coaches, trainers, etc; always experimenting and tinkering with the purpose of learning and getting better.
The fan reaction Dan Hurley generated Saturday afternoon in Providence is typical. He explains that “my rocket fuel is my passion.” I definitely think people can sense that! How many people, and coaches in particular, can put forth that amount of consistent energy for all the world to see and openly evaluate, and he is so unabashedly uncaring of what their judgment might be? There is, whether intended or not, an element of showmanship in his approach, but it’s his authenticity and unpredictability that draw us in, his “Rocket Fuel” on display. He speaks as someone who you can tell feels he earned the fact that he is “comfortable in his own skin” and doesn’t have to present a different persona as a public figure.
In our world today where cameras and microphones are omnipresent, he was caught recently in a fit of pique, chastising a referee (paraphrasing) “don’t you walk away from me I’m the best [explicative] coach in the sport.” His reaction when that faux pas was brought to his attention was, “The only thing I feel bad about is that when I see coach Izzo,or coach Self, in a couple of weeks,I ’m going to really feel like an ass.” How can you not appreciate such an open humorous owning of an embarrassing mistake. Or when he was caught jawing with a Creighton fan after he won a tough game in their raucous home arena, he explained that this guy had to have waited at least 10 minutes after the game to 'come at me at the tunnel, after I had to talk to my team and complete a post game press conference, so I thought I owed the guy an interaction.' He went on to say when this episode was also caught on camera that the only thing he regrets is calling the guy “baldy." which was not actually correct because "he wasn’t totally bald but more “balding” like me!"
Back in the day, I was lucky enough to play on some great teams in the NYC Catholic High School League for a great coach cut from similar cloth as Bob Hurley Sr, so I think I know the breed. A lot of tough love, but they only measured their success on how many young people they helped get scholarships and equipping them to take advantage of that opportunity.
That’s the ethic I perceive Coach Hurley has inherited from his father, which still grounds him today. That’s why I always enjoyed watching him coach and pull for him as long as he’s not using all that “Rocket Fuel” versus Providence College.