Dan Hurley’s “disappointments” as a basketball player may have helped him become the head coach he is today.
Appeared on “Dan Le Batard Show with the Stuggotts” On Thursday, Hurley spoke about stepping onto the court at Seton Hall University 30 years ago and said it’s something that still sticks in his mind.
“I’m still haunted by my playing career in a lot of ways, and I’m still very disappointed in how it went at Seton Hall,” Hurley said when asked why he decided to turn down the Lakers and stay at Connecticut. “So as a coach, I feel a lot of pressure to make up for that in some ways and achieve more, because any time my playing career comes up, that disappointment eats away at me.”
Coming from a legendary basketball family, Hurley faced immense pressure when he enrolled in college basketball.
His father, Bob Sr., is a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer who led St. Anthony High School in Jersey City to 26 state titles and four national championships.
Harley’s older brother, Bobby, was a star player at rival Duke University, where he won two national championships before embarking on a five-year NBA career.
During Dan Hurley’s junior year, the pressure he put on himself became too much for him to bear, and he retired after just two games that season amid struggles on and off the court.
“I’m done,” Hurley said in 2015. According to the Providence Journal“I lost. I started to hate basketball. I started to hate the sport of basketball.”
But it all worked out well for Hurley, who went into coaching immediately after a dismal collegiate season in 1993-94.
After winning consecutive national championships with the Huskies, Hurley turned down a six-year, $70 million offer from the Lakers.
With Coach Hurley at the helm, the Huskies will be looking to win their third consecutive championship, something that no college basketball team has accomplished since UCLA in 1973.
