PITTSBURGH — He’d toddle in behind his idol, giddy that he could tag along and watch his father work. He’d dribble his own ball and shoot off to the side. Sometimes his dad would run his big brother and him through drills. Other times they’d just watch games on TV — mostly basketball, but always some sort of sporting event. Later, when the family gathered for dinner, they’d speak their communal language of basketball. It was so much more than a game in the Hurley household, a convenient metaphor to the rewards of working hard and trying harder, a connector between a father and his two boys, a common thread bonding an entire family.
It was all severed last year, cut abruptly when St. Anthony’s shuttered its doors, done in by finances and the reality of inner-city Catholic education. Bob fought, fought as hard as he taught all of his players to fight, but this was a game that not even the ultimate winner could claim. In the days before the New Jersey high school basketball season would begin, Bob Hurley Sr., a coach for 50 years, was sitting inside his beautiful apartment in Jersey City, eyeing the Hudson River out the window, trying to figure out what in the world he was going to do with himself.
Basketball, of course, provided the answer, this season taking the Hurley family full circle. As Dan Hurley dashes off for a pregame press conference, his Rhode Island basketball team prepping for an NCAA Tournament second-round game against Duke on Saturday, off to the side stands Bob Sr., happily following his boy to work. “Oh man, I can’t cry. I can’t,’’ Dan says, tearing up anyway. “But it’s funny. I grew up living and dying with all of his games, and I had enough basketball sense at a young age to understand what the wins and losses meant to him, to the kids who played for him. Now the roles are reversed.’’
Bob is no NCAA bandwagon-hopper. Kingston, R.I., is just a four-hour drive away (easier to get to than Arizona State, where eldest son, Bobby, is the coach) and on many an afternoon Bob and his wife, Chris, have scooped up daughter Melissa’s kids, arriving in time for tip. He’s not exactly sure how many Rams games he’s seen, but the number is definitely in “double figures,’’ and enough that he’s had to become creative with the excuses to liberate the grandkids from school. “You want to say we’re going to the dentist,’’ Bob says. “But you’re really going to a Rams basketball game.’’
He arrived in the Steel City on Thursday, after watching the Sun Devils lose in Dayton, Ohio, two nights earlier, and now he’s in it for the long haul, planning to be ensconced in the seats behind the Rhode Island bench until the Rams lose. He goes to practices and shoot-arounds, but only as a casual observer, marveling at how efficient his son can be compared to what he sees in high school practices. “I believed in the rote education system,’’ Bob says. “You had to endlessly repeat things.’’
Fandom doesn’t come naturally, though. He thinks like a coach, aware of every nuance — how Dan defended Trae Young in the first-round overtime victory over Oklahoma, and how many timeouts the Rams had left, concerned that they weren’t doing a good enough job on ball-screens or with their ball fakes. He keeps his emotions in check, only yelling when officials stop the action to assess Dan with a bench warning for leaving the coach’s box. “I was like, With all that’s going on, you’re going to stop for that?” he says. “But then I don’t think I said another word the entire game. I was worried.’’
Bob has allowed himself to be adopted into the Rhode Island family, friendly now with the players and their families, familiar to the regular fans, even the dude who dresses up like a frog. But it is not the same, nowhere near. The adrenaline rush of coaching is gone, his heart rate only rising when he completes his daily exercise regimen. To fill the time, he and Chris decided to run a clinic for kids, hoping to bring fundamentals back to the game. It’s fulfilling, but teaching kids how to dribble isn’t the same as collecting state tournament titles.
He knew all of this, knew quitting the game cold turkey was going to be difficult, not just for him but for everyone. He and Chris have been married for 47 years. He was a coach for 50. He chose his other job — as a probation officer — mostly because the hours jibed with practice times. Now, just like that, it was over. “I’ve only been doing this a short time, and I already can’t imagine my life without it,’’ says Bobby. “He’s been doing it his whole life. I don’t know what I’d do.’’
The boys and Chris were understandably worried about him. While recruiting in Las Vegas last July, Dan joked that his dad might drive everyone crazy, especially his poor wife, but after cracking wise he shook his head, wondering what a man would do now that his life’s work was over.
Standing all these months later in a hallway inside PPG Arena, his dad hanging out in the locker room, Dan is both stunned and tickled that he’s helped to fill the void. “It’s heartwarming, it really is,’’ he says. “You know, life happens for you, not to you. Something difficult happens, something new and exciting will happen.’’
But some habits die hard. During games, especially critical times when he needs a little reassurance, Dan will peek into the stands and search out his wife, Andrea, knowing that regardless of the circumstances she’ll be wearing a big grin. This week, Dan often finds himself doing a double take. “ When my dad’s here, I take a glance over at him too,’’ Dan says. “I just take such tremendous pride having him here.’’
Bob may be the tagalong these days, but he’s still his little boy’s hero.
(Top photo of Dan Hurley by Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports)
Source link : https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/276933/2018/03/17/bob-hurley-sr-may-be-out-of-coaching-but-he-still-lives-it-through-his-sons/
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Publish date : 2018-03-17 03:00:00
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