Dan Hurley Describes How He Dealt With Growing Up In The Shadow Of His Brother And Dad

Name: Dan Hurley On How He Dealt With Growing Up In The Shadow Of His Brother And Dad
Uploaded: 2024-05-02T03:56:15+00:00
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Description: Dan Hurley On How He Dealt With Growing Up In The Shadow Of His Brother And Dad

Amber Harding

PublishedApril 14, 2024 8:59 AM EDT|UpdatedApril 14, 2024 8:59 AM EDT

As a coach, Dan Hurley is living the dream. He just led the UConn Huskies to a second-consecutive National Championship. As a player, though, he lived in the shadow of his older brother Bobby.

Appearing on Friday's episode of OutKick's Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich, Hurley discussed the difficulty of constantly being compared to his sibling in the NBA.

"It was tough. I can't imagine doing it today with social media," Hurley said. "Back then… you had to wait for the newspaper the next day to read about how bad you are in relation to what Bob was accomplishing. I mean, thankfully for me, Bob was my best friend and was always my biggest supporter and always tried to lift me up and build my confidence up. We've always had that type of relationship."

Bobby is now the head men's basketball coach at Arizona State.

(Getty Images)

Separated by just a year and a half, Dan and Bobby were both stars at Jersey City's St. Anthony High School — where their dad Bob was the longtime coach. Bobby went on to become a first-round draft pick by the Sacramento Kings. Dan played collegiate ball at Seton Hall but never went pro.

"You know, to be in a household where you made the same exact commitment, you had the same coach, you had the same upbringing, you made the same exact sacrifices," Dan explained. "And then you get nowhere near the rewards. At that time, it just sucked to go through, and it was tough."

Dan Hurley On How He Dealt With Growing Up In The Shadow Of His Brother And Dad

Dan Hurley Finds His Calling In Coaching

And it wasn't just Dan's brother he had to measure up to. His father is a legendary high school basketball coach. In 39 years of coaching at St. Anthony, Bob Sr. won 26 state championships and had five undefeated seasons. In 2011, Hurley became the 10th coach in high school history to win 1,000 games. He's in the Hall of Fame.

"My dad's one of the best coaches of his generation," Dan said. "He just chose to do it at the high school level."

Bob Hurley coaching the St. Anthony Friars in 2017

(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Dan admitted that the pressure to achieve got to him, and he once turned to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

"There was a big element of self sabotage there to where I wanted to kind of have that crutch," he explained. "So I drank a lot. I partied a lot. I wasn't in the gym as much as I should have been or needed to. It's almost like I didn't want to see if I was good enough. It's almost like I wanted to have some type of an excuse if I didn't.

"But I do think, in a weird way, it's benefited my coaching career. Because as much as I'd probably let myself down as a player and not committing that way, I've over-poured into this part of my basketball career."

(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

And that dedication has paid off. Since taking the head coaching job at UConn, Hurley already has two NCAA Tournament Championships. In 2024, he was named Naismith Coach of the Year and Sporting News National Coach of the Year.

He'll never be an NBA player like Bobby. And he might never be the greatest high school coach New Jersey has ever seen. But it's safe to say Dan Hurley is no longer living in anyone's shadow.