Dan Hurley: 2x NCAA Champion UCONN Basketball Coach

14:28Graham Bensinger:Yeah, so, yeah, he did. But. And why? Well, just the way he played. he's like he looks always looks mad he was looks aggravated I'm like I don't

14:38Dan Hurley:know when I fell in love with my wife it just started learning about how important it is to live for other people and and what love can do for you but by

14:48Graham Bensinger:the way on the I was a mess front I was talking to her and she's like what work ethic he had and then she's like literally the only reason he was able to graduate is because I did his paper for him she's like I almost flunked out myself because I was doing his work.

15:04Dan Hurley:No, she typed it. What was the camera? She typed it. I don't want Seton Hall to take it back from me.

15:10Graham Bensinger:Oh, come on. I got him out of Seton Hall. I forwent my studies and my poor dad, rest his soul. I had to grab my report card out of the mailbox because I got straight D's my last semester because I was getting him out by writing his paper and he could say no but I did. He even had the nerve to have me hand it in. Like I wouldn't even give it to him for him to hand in. I handed it in. But he got out.

15:42Dan Hurley:I was that kind of beat up at that point in my life. When I really look back at the college experience it was all the way around. It was just a a major disappointment, you know, just a major disappointment. Just what I, what I accomplished in college.

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16:40Dan Hurley:Because it was like the best thing that happened to me was at that stage of my life, failing in so many different ways and struggling in so many different ways. and having to have the backbone to fight through that and continue to kind of stay in the game and then have the ability to look in the mirror and acknowledge that that happened to you. And I don't ever want to feel like that about myself ever again. And just knowing how bad it can be for you when you're not functioning. at a high level as a human being, right? Like the personal life, professionally what you're doing, the relational things, marriage, family life, how important all those things are to how you feel about yourself and how you're functioning.

17:34Graham Bensinger:The Avon, New Jersey boardwalk. Take me to the moment you give her a box.

17:40Dan Hurley:Oh my God, it's like, you have to understand too with Andrea, she, like a lot of people, like the story her conditioned mind has changed like a lot of these stories it was like a very or it was as romantic as i could do based on my abilities at the time of presenting this incredible opportunity to her to marry me at that state as i was preparing to teach like driver's ed sex ed health and phys ed at my old high school i'm sure she saw this was this train was heading in the right direction, but I thought I presented the ring. I didn't know that you were supposed to ask her dad and her family for permission.

18:27Dan Hurley:You know, things like that were lost on me at that stage. I didn't learn that.

18:33Graham Bensinger:Because she said you gave her a box and said, you know what this is, don't make me uncomfortable. That's not true. That was 1 ,000 % accurate. Please. And he handed me the box, and he said, you know what this is, please don't make me feel uncomfortable. So I'm like, what? So I opened it up and there it was. And then I was like, oh my God. And then a whole group of old people were coming down the boardwalk. So I was like, I just got engaged. And he's like, stop, let's go, let's go. He was like, he didn't want us to like, you know. So that was my story.

19:06Dan Hurley:I don't know if I got on a knee or not, but I asked Andrea, like, will you marry me? And I know that I almost fumbled it and it almost fell within the crack. and into the sand so I know that happened but the first part of it I'm

19:20Graham Bensinger:not sure that happened like that so you proposed on the expectation that you guys would likely end up living together overseas but what makes you decide all of a sudden one day not going to show up to the airport to go play I'm not going to answer the calls you're asking you know where I am where are you yeah yeah I just knew I was tapped at that point.

19:45Dan Hurley:And tapped meaning what? I knew I couldn't. I didn't want to play basketball anymore. What? It had become just a painful experience. I was a shell of myself, of the player that entered college. I was too beaten up at that point. I was not in love with the game that way from a playing standpoint. And I don't know. I think maybe deep down in my mind when I really look at it, I knew that I was going to stay in basketball. I knew that my gift was knowing the game and obviously growing up in the household with the Hall of Fame coach, that I had had incredible training to become a coach and a leader at that point.

20:34Dan Hurley:I'd found a woman that I had loved, that I fell in love with, and that I was getting ready to marry. and I had my career as a basketball coach was I needed to turn my attention to. So probably deep down inside, I probably knew what to do.

20:50Graham Bensinger:What do you think gave you that self-confidence to make that decision? Because it probably would have been easier just to stick with what you know.

21:01Dan Hurley:It was safe. I mean, I was guaranteed, you know, at worst, if I stayed in that pre-draft process. At worst, I was set up to go and make really good money playing basketball around the globe, making great money for 8 or 10 years or 12 years, however I wanted to do it. And I was good enough to do it, but, you know, I was just, I didn't want to play anymore. I think just the dark moments as a player that basketball took me to from a playing standpoint, I just I was it took almost everything I had to get to the finish line in college to come back from from from quit the team and coming back for me I felt like the finish line was my last Big East game against UConn where as ironic as that would be like I played one of my worst games in my last college game versus the UConn Huskies at the Big East tournament.

22:05Dan Hurley:So that probably was a fitting way for that.

22:07Graham Bensinger:And you knew though at that time that was it?

22:11Dan Hurley:I mean, I went through the motions with agents and was not working out like whatsoever leading up to the pre-draft camp in Virginia. So like every other player, I remember Adrian Griffin who graduated the same year with me who played in the NBA was doing like two or three a days in the rec center and in the gym and working out with his trainer and I was doing like two days like um at like Paulie's in the hall at night you know just hanging out enjoying my last time in college uh with all my friends because I think I I was not committed to want to play and I wanted to have my last good

22:55Graham Bensinger:times and so even into your late 30s as i understand it you envisioned yourself spending decades as a high school coach and a teacher yeah what changed um the financials really of it all

23:09Dan Hurley:for my family um i would say would have been like the biggest motivator because at one point you were what like almost 50 grand we you know just we had a bad fire and we didn't we you know got married very young and house burned down right yeah yeah house burned down literally almost all the way to the ground that actually would have helped if it would have burned all the way down to the ground based on the insurance thing but yeah I mean just to be a young couple not making a lot of not knowing much about financials just was tough. And so, you know, like just our early marriage was tough at times with young kids and not being able to send them to the schools you want to send them to and not having a whole lot was very stressful for us and tough on our relationship.

24:04Graham Bensinger:So we kind of got ourselves in a hole. And with him, you know, us doing all that, it was like our credit cards were so maxed out. It was rough. Last Wednesday of every month, they'd shut our DirecTV off, and my kids would have to watch VHS tapes, like Wednesday, Thursday, and then Friday morning would come back on because, like, Direct Deposit would go back in. So we would watch, you know, so, but that, I mean, it was just like, I would swipe and be like, oh, dear God, and pray. What was the hardest moment during that process, you think?

24:37Dan Hurley:just not being able to go and do the things you want to do, not being able to send your kids to the private school that you want to send them to, or not being able to take a vacation that you want to experience with your family, or not living in the house or driving the car, like driving your wife's college car to work, like a back tire, which was turquoise and pink. And like, I'm this hard ass like coach trying to come in here and crack skulls and, you know, and win ball games and stuff. You know, that was not what I imagined for myself. So, yeah, I mean, that that financial piece and also to the the competitive piece, too, because college coaches were coming into my gym to recruit my players, people that were way ahead of me in the profession.

25:30Dan Hurley:but I felt like I was as good or better coached than a lot of those people that were making a lot more money and coaching at a much higher level. So I kept that in the back of my mind too. And you said the same about your dad. My dad is one of the greatest coaches of the sport in the last 50 to 75 years. He's as good as anybody in his generation of having mastered all aspects of what we do as a coach, the tactics, the leadership and psychology motivation, the branding, the skill development, the roster construction, the staff development and construction, the branding. My dad was way better than a lot of coaches

26:15Graham Bensinger:that are a lot more well-known. How many phone calls did it take you to leave Wagner and why? Oh, man, a lot.

26:24Dan Hurley:because we had just turned down a better job or not a better job Wagner a job for more money two years earlier which one was at Marist tell me about pulling the rug with your wife on it I couldn't believe it it was you know we had paid our dues we had coached high school for seven years and you know it just it had always been tight or or just like not bearable for us so this was our opportunity this was you know this was like 5x 8x what we were making and I don't think I was asking a lot I mean you're talking about I think like maybe two hours away from where we live I got offered the job the night before and that it was a formality meet the president you know and this is a done deal press conference on Monday let's go and I I woke her up at 5 a.m.

27:21Dan Hurley:just to get her in the shower and get her, you know, get her looking good to meet the people. And she just started crying.

27:28Graham Bensinger:I was like, just had a literally like mini nervous breakdown, panic attack, crying. Like, I just, I don't, I don't, I'm like, I'm too nervous. I don't want to do this. And he was like, we have to go. They're waiting for us. And he was like pulling, pulling me out with the rug.

27:43Dan Hurley:I had my hand on like her right, right leg, like her ankle and foot. and I was trying to pull her out of bed, not like very lightly, almost like patting her. It was not, I did not yank her, so I don't want this to get misconstrued. I was trying to nudge, pull her a little bit to see if she would, but eventually she got towards the ground and then she was like sliding with the rug as I was trying to direct her towards the bathroom area to just brush her teeth. And I kept them the whole weekend, so I called her throughout the weekend while I was away coaching. And she was not budging, so we ended up turning down that job for six to eight times the money Sunday night.

28:26Graham Bensinger:Would we have two championships if we went to Marist?

28:29Dan Hurley:Well, he said you'd have four.

28:30Graham Bensinger:He said, well, we'll have four. I know. No, we wouldn't. But I mean, yes, was I nervous about that? Yeah. But, you know, the timing wasn't right. And then he said you're ruining his life. Yeah, he's like, you're going to ruin my life. And I was just like, come on. And then I was nervous about that, but it all worked out.

28:51Dan Hurley:I just couldn't understand the reasoning at that point just because, but she knew something. But any time that we lose a game, I'll always, wherever I'm coaching the job before, I'll say, or if I've turned down a job like when I was at Rhodey and we turned down, I think maybe Rutgers a couple times, any game that we lost at Rhodey, she ruined my life because we should have took the Rutgers job. You know, everything is like that. Or anyone that told me to stay in the job, they're also a part of that. I will then remind them the day after I lose that they have ruined my life too.

29:31Graham Bensinger:Set the scene and what Coach K said to you

29:36Dan Hurley:while you were at Rhode Island. Yeah, so we had played Duke twice there. and, you know, Coach K, just, you know, like just having watched him up close with Bob and, you know, just obviously what he took from my dad and what him and my brother accomplished together. It's like, you know, I hold him in just this incredible place as a coach and a leader. So like—

30:03Graham Bensinger:Because your brother played for him. Because of my brother. You played against them back in the day. I played against him and just what he's meant to sports

30:12Dan Hurley:and what he's meant to the coaching profession and the esteem he's held in and how classy he is. His persona is amazing to me. That was my second time where he big boyed us in a big spot in a big game at Rhodey. We played them earlier, I think, in my time here, like a big game at mohegan sun in front of a packed crowd and he just showed that separation between like the big boys and you know kind of where you are know some as a mid-major and and and as a like a really good program or a high level program at at roadie but not elite like these are the big boys so after they smoked us in the round of 32 and and as we're both kind of going coming from and going into media availabilities.

31:07Dan Hurley:He's walking by, you know, with his wife, and he knows that I've got Pitt coming for me and Yukon coming for me with big offers, and his wife, Mickey, is with him, and it's like, just pulls me aside and says, hey, Dan, you need to go. This has run its course, and you need to go to the top level of this thing. So I know you're going to be probably sentimental because it's hard for you to leave places because you're not built like that, because your dad coached high school for almost 50 years and you don't leave well. But you need to take this job. And you're thinking what? If I don't maybe have that moment with him, we might have stayed there because people have no idea how close we came to not coming to UConn.

31:57like as that week went on.

32:00Dan Hurley:Tried to go back when you got here. Tried to go back. I'll ask you about it that way. Buy out. But we, as we got, I don't know what exactly, we lost to Duke on a Saturday, and then the schools came in on that Monday and made their offers and their pitches, and I asked UConn, I asked Rhode Island if they were going to make me an offer, like, because I think they had almost in their minds, like almost kind of like give it up in a way like this guy's just gonna go we can't match it but i would have taken less to stay there because i was looking for a reason to not leave we loved it there so um you know once we kind of asked for an offer from roadie and they made one now it's like there was about 48 hours of me just torturing myself and everyone around me about what we should do.

32:51Dan Hurley:And it's an excruciating process because I don't talk to a lot of people. I only talk to a few people. And I just go back and forth on what to do. And then I sprinkle in some brutality with like Andrea and my kids. And brutality means what? I think we should do this. This is definitely the right thing to do. Here's why. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I then leave that person, get on the phone, talk to somebody. Maybe I call my brother. Maybe I call my dad. Maybe I call Billy Donovan. Maybe I call Coach K. Maybe I call Kamani or Luke Murray. Maybe I call Sister Catherine Waters. Maybe I call Father Edwin Leahy from St.

33:32Dan Hurley:Benedict's. And then something that they say moves me in the other direction. So then I go back to Andrea, Danny, and Andrew and say, hey, listen, change of plans. Now we're not going. Now we're staying. And now here's why.

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34:19Graham Bensinger:So you still want to coach in the NBA one day?

34:22Dan Hurley:I don't know. I don't know about that. You know, I don't, if you're not going to take the Lakers job, then what job are you going to take?

34:29Graham Bensinger:Well, I was going to say, because you always said you wanted to coach in the NBA one day, but then as I understand it, you've also said recently, you could never be an NBA coach because they don't do s***.

34:39Dan Hurley:Who did I say that to? Oh man. I don't know that that is it. those guys have a different relationship with their coach. You know, these are professional basketball players. They don't need that from you. Whereas I think what I love about being a college coach, I think exercises like the Lakers situation was something really good for me to go through in a very public way to really evaluate what type of coach you want to be. I want to be a college coach. Like, I love the competitiveness opportunity to win the championship and to produce NBA-level players. But I also love being a part of, like, this transformation for the last point in a young man's life where you can really have a big impact on how their life is going to play out, like what the man becomes.

35:39Dan Hurley:That, to me, was what I realized that I love about being a college coach, that you don't get to do as an NBA coach because that's not the relationship there. What do you think made you realize that? I think the meeting I had with the players here before I got on a plane to go out there. It was a rough meeting. It was a rough meeting. For you at least, yeah. It was a rough meeting. What do you remember from that? The faces. The faces, because it all broke on social in the morning for them. at a really early time before we could get the group together. I mean, when it breaks on 7 a.m., you know, sports talk and Twitter and so on, the whole deal.

36:26Dan Hurley:Woj drops the bomb at 7 a.m. It's like you can't get the boys together. So just to be able to talk to them, for them, I explained this was the equivalent of the NBA wanting them as a top five pick or the number one pick in their draft, they would obviously consider it. Hey, guys, I'm going to consider it. That's what I would tell you to do.

36:52Graham Bensinger:We were so torn. I mean, honestly, people don't believe that. It was like we had no idea what we were doing. We'd come back. Really? Oh, yeah. And I said, you know, I just kept thinking about our kids, even the kids, the new kids. What about when you were out there? When we were out there, it felt yucky because we have, it's like you're cheating on your family. You know, it's like you, like, it felt wrong, but felt so right, you know? It's like, it was a lot. But out there, you do get stuck, I mean, just the yellow and purple alone, you're just like, oh dear God. I'm sitting at the table and I was like, you know, looking at the colors and the Laker sign and you're just like, wow, this is numbing, you know?

37:35Graham Bensinger:It's amazing and then you're seeing all the people you only see on TV. It was just, it was, I just kept crying because I was so, like, I just couldn't believe that, like, my husband was wanted for this job. It almost touches you a little bit now, thinking of it. Oh, my, I still, like, the fact that he climbed his way from where we were to here, like, the Lakers won him, holy God, after what he just did, like, oh, my God, Like, it's just, I am like, to be proud is like an understatement.

38:11Dan Hurley:It's never just one thing. That's why I never can understand when people see you struggling with like really hard decisions of what direction you want to go with your life. When you're a father or a husband or a leader of an organization, like the amount of lives that are impacted by the choices you make and how people could not understand publicly. why it was such a hard decision, like, it blew my mind.

38:40Graham Bensinger:Well, that's also not to minimize your enthusiasm for it either. Like, talk about going into the room with your wife playing that L.A. song.

38:49Dan Hurley:Yeah, people found that weird too, which surprised me. Just the fact that I make decisions and are very, very close to my wife. I don't know why it's like that, that people are surprised that you make decisions together or that like your marriage and your family is really like your secret sauce and such a big reason why you're successful is the strength of the family.

39:14Graham Bensinger:It went back and forth. And even on the plane, my oldest son was so against it. And on the plane ride home, he was so for it, you know. But a lot went into it. A lot went into it. It was excruciating. It was long. It took a lot. I wasn't right for a long time.

39:32Dan Hurley:People couldn't understand, too, the paradox of like, yeah, before you go to bed, before you're making the biggest decision that you could ever make in your life. Hey, we have all the information right now. We've gone through everything, Andrea. One, two, three, shoot. You know, that was like the new technology version of like rock, paper, scissors. Explain that with the text. It was like, you know, we have all the information. You know the impact on family. You know everything. We know each other better than anybody else in the world. We make decisions for each other, in our family, and one, two, three, shoot, tell us what you think.

40:10Dan Hurley:You know, everything's in, you know? And it was, it was, I was so, I was relieved when we had the stay. You know, like, seeing that stay on her screen quick, and then the next day when we woke up, perfect, it's over.

40:26Graham Bensinger:It's like you want to do both. Like, I want to do both, you know, like so much. But it's just like we just are still in this amazing, you know, like feeling of just what we did here. And it's just it's such it's such an amazing accomplishment and feeling that, you know, you you just it's a dream. And then you're going to you're going to jump and you're going to leap and go somewhere. You know, like, I don't know. I know that's how it goes, but sometimes it's just not right. And I know she shared some version of this with you, but she said her concern was if you took that job and you got fired, that it would send you into such a spiral mentally that there would be no coming back from it.

41:11Yeah.

41:12Dan Hurley:I think just knowing yourself and just knowing how you're going to handle that, just the 82 games, the things I love. I mean, in fairness, that job seems a little easier than this job.

41:37Graham Bensinger:I mean, this job's now 24-7 with NIL transfer portal recruiting, whatever it is.

41:44Dan Hurley:I mean, it's more demanding in a sense that, like, I'm the GM. I pick the players. I have to recruit the players. We've got to, obviously, fundraise and, you know, have great relationships with our donors and be able to brand this program so that we can keep up in college sports with NIL and resources and facilities and those type of things. I hired my own staff. Obviously, I decide when planes take off. And so every aspect of the program here you control.

42:19Graham Bensinger:Not necessarily the case.

42:20Dan Hurley:Not necessarily the case in the NBA. And I feel like where I'm at my best as a coach is the atmosphere that I create in practice. I believe that that gives us a competitive advantage over the people that we play against. It's like Hell Week for Seals or something. The way that we practice, the intensity, the pace, the competitiveness of it, the stress we put the players under. I think that's what makes my teams so great here in college. We get a lot of credit for our offense and all these unique things that we do, but if I can't replicate that in the NBA, it takes one of the things that gives me the competitive advantage in college away from me because you can't practice in the NBA like that because you don't play 82 games and you could barely even have practice time.

43:13Dan Hurley:And are you going to send LeBron on suicide? Stairs, you know, AD, the day after back to backs. And that's what I think you have self-awareness.

43:24Graham Bensinger:In what ways are you hard on yourself? Or is a better question, in what ways you are not hard on yourself?

43:33Dan Hurley:I give myself, I think, my ability to make my whole adult life about my family and UConn basketball or my family and my team that I'm going to stay pure coach. I'm going to keep to my identity those two things that I love or the things that are important to me. Like, I'm just going to stick to those things. I'm not going to become a celebrity coach or a TikTok, social media, or I'm not going to change and get away from somebody that doesn't pride himself on husband, father, becoming a better coach every day, delivering for the people here at UConn, the new players, the fans.

44:29Graham Bensinger:Yeah, but one would think there's a way of doing that without absolutely beating yourself up day in and day out, but maybe not. I don't understand that.

44:39Dan Hurley:That doesn't make sense to me. For me, it's like you have a responsibility for the money that they pay me. And for the players and staff that basically they're putting their lives and their careers in my hands to absolutely max out with them. I think the way that you're supposed to do this job is to absolutely obsess over every aspect of it when you have absolutely nothing left to give to it. And then when burnout starts to come on because you're pressing that hard, then you go away and you let somebody else do it. Describe the fear of failure.

45:18Dan Hurley:I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like in college. Just what losing a lot, what not being high level feels like. I don't want to go back there. It's a great reminder and a motivator for you. to make extra recruiting calls, to watch more film, to be sharper, to work harder, to continue to evolve and improve and push, and to put up this type of pace with how you're getting after it.

46:00Graham Bensinger:I don't want to go backwards. So I did think this was kind of funny. on the rare occasion you've lost, what will the wife yell at you to get you out of bed?

46:13Dan Hurley:I mean, she has strange, like, motivational tactics. It's like old, old school. It's not anything you'd see in, like, leadership books in today's world. She's meaner to me and nastier to me when I'm losing. And when I'm winning and doing great, she pecks away at me. She tries to take me down. So it's like she never makes me feel like I've accomplished a whole lot, but like when I'm struggling and we just had like, you know, the game at Creighton this year where, you know, we lose by a lot and I'm fighting with fans and social media is mad at me because I'm going like crazy Dan on the way out of the arena, you would think that that next morning she'd rub my shoulders, make me a nice breakfast, tell me it's going to be okay.

47:10Dan Hurley:She's telling me you're a lousy coach and you acted like a baby last night. Why don't you take out the garbage because you're no good at coaching?

47:19Graham Bensinger:So her quote to me was, you're a glorified f***ing gym teacher. Go blow your f***ing whistle.

47:31Dan Hurley:That's crazy. Yeah.

47:33Graham Bensinger:Sometimes he gets so into his job, and it's like life or death, and he gets himself so, like, you know, almost sick about it. You know, he just gets, he just, to the ump degree, worries about everything. So I bring him back down to earth, and I just say to him, like, you're a glorified gym teacher. You go in, you coach games. If there was no basketball on the planet, everybody would still survive. You don't perform surgery. You don't save lives, which doesn't go over well, because he usually goes crazy and starts yelling at me and tells me how big basketball is. But I do try to bring him down and tell him, like, enough is enough.

48:16Dan Hurley:I mean, part of me is, like, really pissed off because it couldn't be further from the truth. She still has no idea what I do and how complex this thing is. I mean, she thinks that everything is happening randomly here. Like that the players are just deciding to shoot. There's no habit building. There's no culture that you're fighting for or a systematic way of doing things. Or like she has no idea what analytics are or the difference between a three-pointer and a road game. She's a complete dope when it comes to this stuff.

48:50Graham Bensinger:It works. Yeah. Yeah. He's always like, it's a Jersey girl. You don't know what you're looking at. And I'm just like, okay. Well, I'm just telling you, get back on your horse. It's not that big of a deal. You know, it's like, it's a game. It's a stupid game.

49:06Dan Hurley:It's perfect. If she knew a lot about basketball, we'd be divorced by now or just in a very bad way. I need that perspective. my obsession with somebody else obsessed near my level, this would have been like Armageddon.

49:26Graham Bensinger:Describe your worst ever panic attack and what went on. When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kid's pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like... Ooh, and room service to feel like. Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like.

49:50Dan Hurley:Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels?

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50:30Dan Hurley:I mean, before some games, like before some games, like unbearable, you know, like multiple trips to the can, you know, like your stomach is in such knots that you'd think it's impossible to go to the bathroom that many times. before an afternoon game, no less. Unbearable anxiety, unbearable nervousness about what's about to transpire. And what are you thinking about in those moments? Every player on your team playing their worst and then every player on the other team being at their best. And then all the different things, too. you're so well prepared for all the tactics of the game of what you do defensively what you do offensively and vice versa and you're calling you're calling a lot of different things you're calling defenses that are very complex offensive that are very complex a rotation of substitution and lineups adjustments are happening at real time too and then you're also dealing with the the mental state of your players, the ones that have confidence in playing well, the ones that are playing badly and are melting down.

51:57Dan Hurley:The things that are going on in a game are so complex. And the fact that I know that so well because I grew up basically studying this whole thing as an apprentice to a master has created for me an understanding I know things too well. And that makes me, that's caused me a lot of issues. But every game and every, mostly every victory has made it a lot easier for me. Every championship has made it a lot more calm for me.

52:29Graham Bensinger:But correct me if I'm wrong, the panic attack, or a panic attack before, did they actually put you in the hospital?

52:34Dan Hurley:Oh, yeah. Hospital, not necessarily always, too, before a game. sometimes you know just overwhelmed or yeah I just think a lot of the time and like when I was a high school coach too it was like the combination of like young kids young marriage you just got fired at Rutgers you're now a high school coach money's tight you know you're just not sure like when you always thought you were gonna get fired yeah I mean like the fear of just not succeeding and not being able to provide better and not being able to be accomplished and have achieved great things that to me should make somebody nervous.

53:22Graham Bensinger:And when you've gone to the hospital do you know it's the panic attack that's going on or are there times you think you're having a heart attack or whatever?

53:31Dan Hurley:You would think that you would think that you're gonna have a heart attack. I've had two of them recently even I would say the one I It wasn't being hospitalized. It was ringing the stock exchange bell the year before. And it was just, you know, the emotional and physical and mental strain of a season that you put everything into. And then, like, the euphoria of winning it and being a little tired. And then you're running around and you're doing a lot of cool stuff, but you become disconnected from your team and your players, and you get around different people, and then you're just like, wait, I know this is cool, I'm here, unbelievable experience, but where's Donovan Klingin?

54:21Dan Hurley:Where are all the players? So I remember just being overwhelmed with everything and then being outside of my comfort zone, being off my routine of things that I like to do and the way I like to spend my days, being at a be like not not having a practice to go to not having my peloton ride to go on in the morning not having my weirdo room it just it it uh it became overwhelming uh there was a

54:52Graham Bensinger:period of time in the past couple years i believe where you went into such a thunk that you weren't going into work uh you couldn't leave the house uh and some thought you just might quit

55:07Dan Hurley:Yeah, so two different times for me. It was prior to my neck, you know, prior to my spine surgery. I had just a tough maybe month where the doctors, they could not diagnose what I was dealing with.

55:25Graham Bensinger:And many people didn't think it was anything.

55:27Dan Hurley:Many people didn't think it was anything. So, you know, in my persona, you know, the fitness, the condition I keep myself in, And I pride myself on that, that Iron Man persona. And it was like they couldn't diagnose. I was getting a heaviness in my chest. And then I was getting a little bit lightheaded. And I was getting tingling down the back of my skull, down through my left arm, which in my mind meant that I was having some problem with my heart. You were constantly walking around with one of those. Yeah, I have a heart condition that I deal with already. which is something I have to track, which is hereditary.

56:10Dan Hurley:So in my mind, like, I knew it was something, but they were giving me gluten tests and food allergies. And I'm like, there's something else here. And I checked myself into, I drove myself to Hartford Emergency Room, and, you know, and I was crying, and I was experiencing these symptoms. and I got discharged and I was not going to work at that time the rest of that week.

56:42Graham Bensinger:We got him looked out head to toe and he kept saying to me, I have something wrong with me. There's something wrong with me. I said, they checked you out, blood work, everything. You have nothing wrong with you. Went home. Mentally, it wasn't good. Like, I saw a huge difference in him, which was kind of scary. Why couldn't you be around people at that time?

57:05Dan Hurley:I convinced myself that, you know, that I was dying, that something was physically wrong with me. Like I knew I was off, like I did not, like I wouldn't get up and I couldn't work out. I couldn't because I was, I felt like something physically was wrong with me. and then because something I thought was physically wrong with me, I had gotten away from my Bible and my prayer and my meditation and my journaling. Things just went off the rails for me because my health was failing me.

57:47Graham Bensinger:It was to the point, and I thought he was bullshitting me, which I was getting annoyed at because, like I said, you're coaching in front of thousands of people and now you can't drive a car. Like, this is getting insane. Like, snap out of it. What did you see? He was obsessing, walking around with heart monitors, telling me that, like, you know, he had an addiction to caffeine, which I never saw him drink a cup of coffee. It was like, what are you talking about? He asked you to take him to rehab for caffeine. Yeah, he's like, well, he came to me, this was like, when he kept telling me things, something wrong, he's like, he's like, I think you have to drive me to rehab.

58:21Graham Bensinger:And I was like, oh, dear God, like, is there something going on that I don't know about? I said, for what? He's like, caffeine. I think I have a caffeine addiction. I was like, oh my God. But he was searching for something, and it was not bullsh**. I thought it was bullsh** at first. I was like, you cannot be, you're a grown man telling me that you have things wrong with you. But he really was. Tell about the exercise where you were told to go into CVS by yourself, go get something. And you end up dropping the bag of chips in the aisle and run it out.

58:56Dan Hurley:I was in such a bad way that I couldn't even stand to be in the store.

59:06Graham Bensinger:I said, I'll stop at CVS. You go in, and then you drive yourself home. And he couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. Ran out. Like, what happened? I was walking. Like, he was in the aisle. He was going to get, like, Tostitos or something. And then I walked out, and I saw him run out of the store, like, walk fast out of the store. and I'm like, where'd he go? And I see the Tostitos there, and I'm like, what, you really can't do this?

59:30Dan Hurley:It scared the out of me, and it rocked me to my core, and you couldn't convince me otherwise. What was I going to go to work for? I was, there's something wrong with me. Like, I'm, I just, I couldn't function. Like, the wheels came off mentally. I could not, I couldn't move. Did you think you were done? I thought I was done, and I didn't care. You know, like, I did not care. Because my health was, like, when you're having, like, symptoms that are, like, really, really serious, and you're scared about that, it's a problem. So it's just crazy to me that it took, like, I remember I was in such a bad way.

1:00:25Dan Hurley:I slept on the basement couch that night, and I woke up with a stiff neck. So I actually, because I had a stiff neck, I came in that morning that week and went and saw our trainer here. And the trainer said to me, took me over to the school doc, Dr. Dina, and said, why don't you just go get an MRI of your neck or your spine. I want to see what's going on there. You've got a stiff neck.

1:00:51Graham Bensinger:They didn't have any of the context as to what was going on at the time?

1:00:55Dan Hurley:They had no idea because I just shut down completely. And I went to my own doctor's. I don't know if I was trying to hide it from UConn because I was afraid that they'd fire me if they found out I was broken a little bit. So Dr. Dina, they get the MRI results. like that next morning i get like an emergency call you got to get to got to get to this neurologist and um just brought me in there and said like hey listen buddy uh the talk the clock is ticking um with the way that you've got issues uh with your spine you've got to go get uh you know two to three level uh disc displacement in your neck and if you get into a minor fender bender or if a player runs into you in practice you could be quadriplegic paraplegic it's that serious and this isn't one that you can wait two or three months on a year now like yo you need to get in like this week next week because you're at risk and in a way i never felt better or never felt you know even even more of a level of of fear but the fact that somebody diagnosed like what was wrong with me was like made me feel so much better in a weird way yeah I was gonna say you're thinking what at that time well I mean the the fear is now raging because now my first impression was like like you you know that you're gonna be wearing a halo you know for the you know that was like the first thing like what does that look like that I cut this year like where are they gonna go went through your brain like I had no idea because growing up you only went to a dentist when your tooth was about to fall out or you went to a doctor if you were like on death's doorstep you know what I mean like you were Jersey City tough so I went into like you know eight different opinions too because how I make decisions is so we I think it was four opinions before selecting a surgeon and uh yeah but worked out okay it worked out okay and it was like i immediately snapped out of everything though like i was coaching in practice with like a bubble of managers and coaches around me so to avoid players from running into me and when i was driving home i was keeping like crazy distance when i was walking up and down stairs I was like every step but I was able to then back functioning and just mentally preparing for you know the surgery and the and in the rehab he was

1:03:42Graham Bensinger:ready to go he was back on his horse yeah in fact he got it done I think it was a little bit it was hard to come to the fact that he had to have neck surgery and you know and you know we did the whole new york thing it was like it was it was a lot for somebody like that he was just going coming out of that but um he he couldn't wait to go to work he i think he was back in work the next day like a day or two after i was driving him in you know with his all his you know stuff on but he was back you snapped back pretty quickly because you knew what was you found out what was going on and there was a solution yeah i mean i still i

1:04:20Dan Hurley:I dragged everyone through my decision-making process, which is unique. But I was back at it and, like, rolling. What's the deal with you and superstitions? For me, superstitions, it's like my armor. Whether it's any of the superheroes or the animals or the underwear, you know or my pre walking onto the court rituals of the holy water because my faith is so strong it's like all the things that either give me strength or help me relax and go out and perform i like to keep close to me and then it just helps with your confidence like this level of sports is high intensity and there's a lot at stake so like for me any things that I could do to try to take either decision making away or make me think that I have some type of competitive advantage or help me relax I'm gonna do it and tell about the M &Ms if this doesn't make sense to people then I mean then there's something wrong with them

1:05:31Graham Bensinger:and yeah there is alex said this was the most ridiculous of your he said that yes yeah well

1:05:40Dan Hurley:the apple doesn't fall too far because he's like a sick obsessed too um it's just i like if you're you have your school colors that it makes sense to just to eat those plain m &ms right before the game that makes i think perfect sense for people you like that little bit of extra sugar just to get that energy level up a little bit. And it's hard to eat day of game. You're very hungry because mostly your stomach is in knots because you're very nervous these games are important.

1:06:13Graham Bensinger:And you used to never eat the day before the game, the day of the game, or the next day if you lost.

1:06:18Dan Hurley:Yeah, I would lose 10, 12 pounds easy during the season, sometimes 15 pounds. I'm keeping my weight much better right now, closer. But you feel sometimes like you're going to pass out. So those M &Ms, you know, because by that time, you know, like the game's closer and you know your body needs something. So but you see an opposing team, you know, if I'm playing, you know, if I'm playing Villanova or Creighton and they wear blue, but they don't have red in their color scheme, then you could go with with with red. But then you have to alternate another color in, which would be green. I'm half Irish.

1:06:57Dan Hurley:So green's a lucky color. so let's go with green. You know, now I've not got to a point where we shared blue and red and then we both have green. And where we go from there, I don't know.

1:07:12Graham Bensinger:Mars has been a sponsor of our show for 13 years and the head of media for Mars is from Jersey City. I've been told that that's how long. Do you want to be hooked up?

1:07:20Dan Hurley:Yeah, pass me my champagne bottle of M &M's. Why travel with the portable washing device? I think it's like it would be unpleasant, you know, like just how unpleasant. If you saw what a coach, a head coach in particular, who has to make the decision, if you saw what those underwear could look like in a very packed arena, you need to watch.

1:07:49Graham Bensinger:The four half-court shots was last season. And you would delay practice sometimes for this.

1:07:59Dan Hurley:Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people saw that, too. That's not a secret thing. Yeah, I probably overstepped. But you were going for back-to-back, right? So you have to make two in a row. And then you had to do it for both ends of the court. I'm going to give myself just three made total, just because I'm telling you, like, my left elbow, I've had such really, like, really bad pain. I've done some damage to a ligament in my left elbow. from heaving those shots from half court and three-quarter court. So there's a price. But, yeah, that's part of my routine. And the players, there's people coming from all different types of major media outlets.

1:08:43Dan Hurley:There's NBA front offices. There's presidents of our university. There's major donors that are in the stands. And they're watching me do this. So it's not like I'm afraid to do this in front of people. There's people that are watching this. I don't know what they're thinking.

1:08:57Graham Bensinger:I was going to say, does that make it better or worse?

1:08:59Dan Hurley:I'm authentic. I think that is the best thing that's worked for me.

1:09:06Graham Bensinger:Temperament. It's the end of day two at UConn. You walk into Jim Calhoun's office. Take it from there.

1:09:18Dan Hurley:Yeah, you look under the hood. It's worse than you think it's going to be.

1:09:23Graham Bensinger:And that means what?

1:09:25Dan Hurley:that means you've done your first practice you realize how good you are which is which is bad and then you know you go like you're you you're in a championship culture and then you know now you're going into a you know an organization that has you know has had to bring in a whole new staff because everything is eroded. You're already torn on the decision to begin with. And I talked to my agent prior to going into Coach Calhoun's office. He explained buyout to go back.

1:10:02Graham Bensinger:You talked to your agent like, hey, I want out of here.

1:10:06Dan Hurley:I want out of here. This place is going to take too much out of me to turn this around because it's more than I thought. because this is like, this isn't a Wagner or Rhodey takeover. This is like one of the biggest brands in college sports, four-time national champions. The last two coaches have won Natty's. Gino R.E.M. has won 11. Like, this is the college basketball capital of the world. This isn't some place that's, you know. So, yeah, I'm going to make that call to the agent and say to him, like, this isn't what I thought I was taking over. And, you know, I threatened to fire him because he didn't tell me that it was this bad.

1:10:53Dan Hurley:I called up. I went through my checklist of people to complain to. And he explained the buyout. And then I marched over into Coach Calhoun's office. And then because I knew that I had to stay and I had no choice and no move to make. And he just ripped me in there.

1:11:11Graham Bensinger:So you walk in. You say what to him? and then he responds how? I mean, I walked in, you know, like with the sad face,

1:11:23Dan Hurley:like my whole, I almost went back to like the player from Seton Hall with the sh**y attitude and the shake in his head and just that like, like Jersey City, like this is BS, like can you believe all the people here that are going to get in my way of succeeding here and this thing is a disaster coach. And I could see him looking at me and there's no empathy, like no compassion whatsoever. Like you could just see it. He's like not nodding. He's like looking at me like I'm like a punk. And he's just like, are you effing kidding me? Like this is a joke, right? Like this is who we hired? Like you need to get your, you know what, together, bro.

1:12:13Dan Hurley:Like, get yourself moving. Do you have the right staff? All right, then go hire them. You need NBA players, go get them. You know, if things aren't in place, go, like, brutalize your AD and the people at this school until everything's in place. But don't come in here again like this. You look weak. And running out the door, running down the hallway, like, let's go. Really? Oh, yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Like, what are you doing? like those moments like that you know what's the deal with the sideline behavior that to me is like i think it's like more about other people than it is about about what that what that looks like um you know for me again like north jersey north new jersey like has incredible roots uh for for sports, but also great coaches like, like, like UB Brown and, you know, and, and Chuck Daly and my dad and, and coaches that used to like coach and work camps in the summer that coach with a lot of passion and intensity and their teams, they played hard with a lot of emotion and passion, stuff that people love about sports.

1:13:31Dan Hurley:Um, I just don't know why that's such a big deal for people that I coach every possession hard. My players reflect it, how they play. And that I challenge calls by referees. And that I also interact with fans sometimes in a positive way or a negative way.

1:13:52Graham Bensinger:Your agent's been concerned in the past about how much you would get on the refs.

1:13:57Dan Hurley:Yeah, he's an agent though. He doesn't have to win.

1:14:01Graham Bensinger:He'll talk to your wife and try and get

1:14:03Dan Hurley:hurt on you. Listen, I think that was an important moment for him, but his ability to not relate to just what these moments are like when you get to the NCAA tournament and you have to win, or you get to the Big East tournament and you have to win the championship to either validate your career or to get more security or whatever that moment means. you know you just i think those are moments that are hard for him to relate but he you do need people like that in your life to walk you off the ledge when you're melting down at different moments like uh like i was two januaries ago when the engine was running a little bit too hot and um it wasn't coaching with passion and high level performance it was over the top too close to it too emotional um how so i i had believed in my mind that uh there was a conspiracy um you know and and like with with the referees calls um that you know they were all against me and um and that i was uh you know that maybe that in my mind like i was doing some self-sabotage like i did as a player like not wanting to see how good i was and just you know kind of kind of self-destructing there in that january and it took uh you know i think some strong words with the agent some strong words with you know from from andrea what was said to you i had had back to back flame outs in the assembly tournament um we had crushed that early season and looked like the best team in the country and then uh we lost our first game and we were going to be number one the next week but that game at Xavier and Cincinnati we lost every you know we lost the perfect start all of our players went through slumps we played the hardest part of our schedule you can't keep up that level throughout an entire season and probably go undefeated although love to see if if you could do that but I didn't see everything at the time that was happening and just manage my team through this tough stretch of all these things, I just imploded.

1:16:27Graham Bensinger:But that means what for you?

1:16:30Dan Hurley:Not making adjustments, allowing the dark cloud of the last loss stay too long and not appropriately handle the adjustments, the corrections, holding everyone accountable for the performance. and then moving past it and preparing for the next one. Just allowing that failure to stay with the group too long and to seep into the bones, that was the biggest thing I learned to get adjusted that January.

1:17:03Graham Bensinger:A quote you gave, which I thought was interesting. You said, I don't care what people necessarily think of my intensity or my passion. It obviously shows up the right way with my team. We don't cheat. We don't lie. I think we're about all the right things. I'm just at times an a**hole. Yeah, right.

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1:18:46Dan Hurley:Yeah, I mean, it is. And we don't get as much coverage. You know, I just think, you know, for whatever reason in sports, you know, I think you have. Even now, though? What's that? I mean, even now? We should lead, you know, we should be the consensus number one team going into next year. morning shows or, you know, leading, you know, sports highlight shows or, you know, like we've been one of the best sports organizations the last two years. The talent, the teamwork, the energy that we play with, like the, you know, the excellent, like the excellence, like the old school values of like you know players holding each other accountable coaches holding players accountable like striving for championships dominating in pressure moments like you know we suck here at you know creating social media buzz and dropping tick tocks and doing all those types of things and the things that we stand for should be you know are in my mind like you know should be celebrated more in what ways did fatherhood make you a better coach knowing that you have like young men that you've got a model for you know like I want a model for my two sons I want to model like what it is to be like a committed husband and you know dad that hopefully you can be proud of that sets a standard, but also emotionally shows you how much he loves you too.

1:20:29Dan Hurley:I would say that. Being forced to live for other people and want to make other people proud of you. The gift of love, the gift of loving other people and wanting to be great for them and wanting to provide things for them, provide a life for them, and provide an example for them, something that they could be proud of.

1:20:53Graham Bensinger:We talked to Andrew earlier. What's it been like having him on the team? Man, having Andrew down there,

1:21:03Dan Hurley:just, you know, you miss so much with the boys, with your sons and with your kids as a coach. It's like a, and then you give so much emotion and you empty so much into the team that sometimes when you come home to them, you don't have as much as you wish you had for your family. You're like, you know, you're shot sometimes, you know. You're just a little bit drained. So to be able to have them with you, you know, when you're at full energy and you could, you know, pour more into that while they're with you. And then just to do the roller coaster ride with him was pretty awesome, you know, like that.

1:21:44Dan Hurley:It's such a cool thing that the wins, the losses, like just all the epic things you get to do together it's awesome your wife says she's ready

1:21:53Graham Bensinger:for him to move out though because she cannot handle living with a second dan hurley i mean

1:21:59Dan Hurley:the kids i mean that they're it's like anything else you know the stuff that you look at your dad when you're younger or older and you say you know i could see that in myself or i can't or man i

1:22:12Graham Bensinger:didn't want to see that myself they're they recognize the obsessiveness in both kids i mean

1:22:17Dan Hurley:my my oldest son danny with his with politics and government and history and the way he obsesses over his work and his interests and and andrew here with his personality and his argumentative style and their work ethics and all the stuff yeah why are you discouraging him from becoming a player agent i would discourage him from anything in sport no i i uh i'm gonna walk that back because uh what i'm looking for him in any of these things is is uh to understand that that is a very tough business coaching is a brutally hard business government politics is a brutally hard business sports agent you better be a shark a wolf a dog and very very super smart all rolled up in one because it's just it's a it's a vicious business and you don't want to be bad at it because it's a bad life how do you think your upbringing impacted you as a father I think it'll just in a lot of ways I think growing up I grew up in like a neighborhood in Jersey City where there were like just a lot of good families, a lot of good dads, a lot of hardworking dads.

1:23:39Dan Hurley:I had a really hardworking dad that spent a lot of time with us. His standards were always really, really high, really high, like painfully high at times. But that molded such, I think, an incredible like toughness and and also a commitment to family like my dad was like you know um he was saint anthony basketball and it was like his his family and there weren't a lot of interests or hobbies and um in a very intense way you know he poured that into his family and i think you know for me i've tried to do those same things and then you know and then And like continuing to also show like a real emotional side of myself to my kids, like a vulnerability about myself that mixed into those other characteristics that I learned.

1:24:39Dan Hurley:What's that for you, the vulnerability? Well, for me, it's just I learned that at Seton Hall when I was going through it as a struggling player. and I got to those deep, dark places when I quit the team, just being introduced to counseling and therapy as a tool to open up as a man and talk about the things that are bothering you, that you're struggling with, to other human beings as a sign of strength and not weakness, and being able to work through those type of things in a smart way so that you're not carrying that weight around with you. Learning that, I think, has taught me about that vulnerability, and I express that to my own kids and to my own players.

1:25:28Dan Hurley:Like, you've got to be dialed in to your mental health because there's a lot of different things that go into making sure that you're in a good place at full energy and that you're obviously being grateful and working on yourself a lot is going to get you there.

1:25:46Graham Bensinger:Between your dad and your mom, Chris, give some color to that tough love growing up.

1:25:52Dan Hurley:I say this, and they get mad at me, but it's like they were perfect, I think, parents for me, and you grew up in a perfect place like Jersey City. It's like they showed you that they loved you, enough enough but never like too much where they babied you and made you soft you know it's like they loved you like the perfect amount of like tough love and real love to the point where like you were tough enough and then they pushed you hard enough that you weren't like like all screwed up you know so it's like this perfect blend of like Like, they pushed you hard enough that you're not all screwed up.

1:26:39Dan Hurley:And then, like, they loved you enough that you're not soft. Too hard by today's standards? No, not at all. Not at all. Like, I think that I love, and obviously you adapt it. You know, you adapt it to the day and age that you're in. This isn't like the, you know, the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. So I think the standards are very, very high. I think, obviously, the messaging has changed over the years. But I think standards high, but you show people how much you love them all the time.

1:27:22Graham Bensinger:What do you remember from your dad sending you and Bobby to some of the roughest neighborhoods to find the roughest basketball games?

1:27:32Dan Hurley:Yeah, just traveling and going to all different places, you know, Jersey City, playing in some, like, you know, tough courtyards or going and playing in New York City in the Bronx or Brooklyn or Queens or Philly or going to places to play against the toughest players, the best players. being put on a daily schedule where you had to like train and practice real hard and like do great in school and and just compete and not back down and work hard that was never like a form of punishment you know like that was like the the greatest gift like being taught work ethic and and how to compete and being put in some like really tough conditions to do that makes you real strong and made me and my brother strong why did you guys stop playing each other in one-on-one in seventh or eighth grade because like um there was always like a big gap because i was younger and then you know these were one-on-one-on-one so like my dad was you know my my dad would beat my brother because he was physically just obviously way older so he would physically beat my brother up and then be victorious.

1:28:53Dan Hurley:And then, like, the loser then would play me, who was waiting. So then my brother pissed off, who was better than me and older than me, would then beat me, and then I would be demoralized, and then I would play the winner from the first game, which would be my dad, who was fresh and better. Sounds fun. Would you stay in—how long would you want to—I was so excited when those stopped. because now my brother was getting close to beating my father, and then I would have then given my dad a game. So I think my dad is the one who called it off when he saw my brother creeping up.

1:29:32Graham Bensinger:How true is it that you had fever sores on your lips from when you played your brother in the NCAA tournament?

1:29:38Dan Hurley:Yo, that was brutal because I was playing like maybe, you know, six minutes, eight minutes, some games less, some games a little bit more. And, you know, and I could see that PJ understood that there was going to be a tactical advantage of having me out on the court, what that would psychologically do to my brother. So I noticed myself starting to practice more than I was with the first team. Like, wait a second, I didn't get this many reps. So I could sense that my role was going to be bigger. And now this became this whole big media thing. It was like the Hurley Brothers, City of Brotherly Love, Philly.

1:30:18Dan Hurley:back then if you ever played a game on tv it was like a big deal you haven't even been talking to the media because you're the backup point guard and now wait now i've been thrown into this hurley bowl like crap that's like oh my god like this is gonna this is like a disaster you're like you're you're you're you're you're in no position ready to be in a game of this magnitude

1:30:42Graham Bensinger:i think this connects to i mean this does connect to kind of a tougher period of your life but Take me to the moment that you found out about your brother's accident and what you're told.

1:30:54Dan Hurley:Yeah, so I had already come into the house fragile, like fragile, just having packed up enough stuff to either move out of Seton Hall permanently to never return, or maybe at some point you can pull yourself together and return to college. So I didn't know how I was leaving, but I eventually, I just remember driving home in a bad way, just contemplating just how badly things were going for me and how far off course and how embarrassed and how much shame I felt returning to Jersey City, a place that celebrated me and my family a lot and were synonymous with the city. So that didn't feel good. And I just remember being up watching Bob's game because we had the satellite dish on the roof at our house.

1:31:51Dan Hurley:And we caught his game. And then I just went to bed. And then I remember just getting that call that night of like frantic yelling, you know, screaming, crying that my brother was in the ER and the accident was life-threatening. And then it was just scary, man. What are you told about what the injuries were? Well, it's just life-threatening, ambulance, ICU, book flights. So I just remember just like this just chaos to get the landline, right, to get the landline to be able to call and try to get flights. Back then, the way you could get flights was you called the airlines. So it was very scary.

1:32:44and you don't want to hold the phone because you've got the hospital calling and the agent there.

1:32:51Graham Bensinger:The torn windpipe, two collapsed lungs, broken ribs, fractured back, ligament damage to the knee. Was there a moment during that process that was scariest?

1:33:04Dan Hurley:I mean, just the reports that you were getting back home and then the reports, like when I'm the last one to go out there, my parents go first, and then, you know, so then they call you and tell you what Bob looks like. You're like, the descriptions are bad, and then you lay eyes the first time and you see and he's just, his body's bloated and he's just, you know, he's got a scar. I mean, you're not even, like, thinking about the head trauma and the gash on his forehead, the scarring, and just on top of everything, he just doesn't look like the same human being. Why at the time did you wish you were the one in that crash?

1:33:54Dan Hurley:you know, the shame I felt at the time, and just, you know, with our family and the standard and the Hurley family and how far away I was from being where I needed to be for the group, for the family, and for myself, and just how worthless you feel at that point. You know, no area of your life is going well. You suck in school. you've got no relationships you're a horrible player you know you've got no faith you know you don't believe in anything above just you know hanging out drinking and doing everything either mediocre to bad you had quit the team

1:34:41Graham Bensinger:and then there's a moment you're back at your dorm room mm-hmm your brother leaves your Jersey City friends that were there leave, take it from there?

1:34:55Dan Hurley:Yeah. Just hold up and would not leave the room. No food, nothing to drink, nothing to eat. Won't take calls. Won't take calls, phones going off in the room, hallway phones going off. I could hear it in the hallway. And we're the only people on campus, just like we are. just like we are right now. Like there's no one on campus. It's winter break. It's just the basketball team. So, you know, there's the banging on the door and your family doesn't know where you are because no one from Seton Hall was reaching out for them. I think we had a day off that next day. So I don't think that they knew that I had basically shut it down until, you know, day two going into day three where no one had heard from me.

1:35:44Dan Hurley:So that's where off day Saturday, no one notices that you've got underground. Then the next day on Sunday, you don't show up for practice. Okay, they're probably starting to look around for you, but not until that night where you still haven't surfaced until that next morning did anyone start really even coming to look for me. So it was probably about 48 hours.

1:36:07Graham Bensinger:What do you think got you to the place where you were considering taking your own life?

1:36:14Dan Hurley:You know, you go and eventually they talk you into, you know, you get talked into coming out of the room to go with your mother to, you know, psychologists and to get analyzed that way. And I think the first couple of professionals I went to talked about, you know, potentially doing a medic, you know, medication, which was which was scary for me and not what I wanted to hear. But it's been hugely helpful for plenty of people. And it helped plenty of people, but it wasn't something that that made me feel good about where I was at, that I couldn't kind of fight my own way through it. So, you know, I returned to, you know, I remember getting in the car that night while my mom was driving me back home to Georgia City.

1:37:10Dan Hurley:It was dark outside, and, you know, you're just, you're thinking about everything, you know. You're, you're, you know, again, you're failing. You're, you're, you're failing. You're struggling. No area of your life is, is, has any quality to it. It's just, you know, you're, you're, you're not, you're not healthy. You're an absolute mess. And it just, what you've invested to this point, what your father's invested, what everyone has invested in you, your community, you're failing yourself. You're failing everybody in your mind. That's how you're personalizing the whole thing. And you know it.

1:37:48Graham Bensinger:One sweet, melty bite of a Hershey's bar, and suddenly I'm right back sitting on the front porch with my grandmother on a slow summer afternoon. She doesn't say much, just breaks the bar in half and hands me a piece. I open my mouth to say whatever a nine-year-old wants to say. And she replies with a low, shh, listen. So we sat there, listening. That was the first time I learned that quiet can feel full. Hershey's, it's your happy place. Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections for what teens see and who can contact them. Plus, time management tools. And Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences.

1:38:35Graham Bensinger:Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teenaccounts.

1:38:48Graham Bensinger:Only time in your life you've ever had those thoughts?

1:38:54Dan Hurley:yeah you've had times where you like you feel pretty crappy you go through the health scare and you're not sure what has you in this funk um i mean i i know losing to new mexico state here um my fourth year here after you know the back-to-back failures um was a really jarring moment nowhere near these other ones but it knocked me it knocked me underground for for a couple days and didn't deal with the media for close to a month and uh you know i did my job i did my job um i was able to function well enough here but you know mentally and personally that was a that was a brutal you know brutal off season in summer when you've been in those moments what

1:39:43Graham Bensinger:What are the tools you found most effective for pulling yourself out?

1:39:48Dan Hurley:Yeah, I would say the morning routine for me, you know, just getting out of bed in the morning, knowing that my God and my faith is waiting for me, and I want to start my day in prayer, and that I'm not going to let my spiritual aspects of my life be let down. like my relationship with God is going to stay strong and a pillar for me, like I'm going to lean into that to start the day straight away. Then I'm going to begin again. When I get to my meditation and journaling, I'm now strengthening the mental aspect of my life. So I'm starting the day to begin to get my strength back. Now I go crush a workout and kill my personal best in the mile at 51 years old.

1:40:41Dan Hurley:Now I've got, like, great momentum started. I've got to come in and pick up the pieces at that point and watch film and make the corrections. But I'm coming in here, like, really strong, having done some things to create some momentum. Because when everyone sees me in here, I can't look weak. I can't look defensive. if anything i gotta look pissed off or angry oh come on that's it i mean it's like when you get knocked on your ass and you have failed and um you're hurting like you don't sleep that night like you you don't go to bed and you wake up and you just you know this is personal this is like uconn basketball and how we play and what we achieve it's you know i'm the first person that people are pointing at when this thing goes bad and and what my team looks like and how we function is very personal to me and it's something I take great pride in because I know my career as a player was a failure I know that my college years were a major disappointment the person I was and

1:41:50Graham Bensinger:does that really still bother you because that that was a piece that I didn't get there was some quote that you gave about you're like I don't want to say it haunts me and I'm thinking to myself What do you mean? You're like one of the best coaches on the planet. Who cares? That's part of your story and how you got to where you are.

1:42:08Dan Hurley:Yeah, I'd say two things. It doesn't last. You know, I thought the fulfillment of the championships would erase the insecurities and your thirst for the pursuit of the next achievement, but it wears away quickly. and you realize that you love the work and you love the tribe. Billy Donovan helped reinforce that with you, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, Billy, I think before it happens and after the fact, having those relatable conversations where you both kind of nod in agreement that it was the practices, it was the journey, it was the relationships, it was being a part of a group of strong men in pursuit of incredible achievement.

1:42:56Dan Hurley:together and the sacrifices and the connectivity and like even like everything that you do together and having to come back from failure like what gets forged there like that's the things that you could never forget about the team I look at this thing it's like uh your career it it just it's something that should haunt you when you have uh you know the things that that you know you have failed in or you have learned from or you have struggled through i think you've got to keep those things near and dear to you uh to keep that fire lit and to keep just having that chip on your shoulder i think what makes us so so dangerous at uconn is like i think we practice and we show up for games like we've never won a thing but then uh with this desperation that we have with our preparation and now we're taking the court with the confidence of champions and I think that's what makes us so unique and dangerous.

1:43:59Graham Bensinger:I was speaking to a couple of your coaches earlier about this but you have said it's hard to put together a staff because there aren't a lot of coaches that want to work with you. Explain that. Luke said that. You've said that before.

1:44:15Dan Hurley:Yeah I I think this place is not meant for every player to play in. The demands are extraordinary, and what we pursue is really tough to achieve. And then the people that work for me, it's a pace and a tempo that it's hard to maintain. Burnout is a real risk here for everyone involved with it because we push so hard. the difference between us of these players that we may only coach him for 10 months we only coach him for 18 months i had steph castle for for eight months i was his coach this isn't a marathon this

1:44:58Graham Bensinger:this is total all-out olympic sprint i asked each for their most heated argument they've ever had with you and how they got through it. And each brought up something related to recruiting. Luke, most notably last year, the conversation ended with, you know, you not talking to him for a period of time and him showing up at your house, knocking on the door, you not answering. Tell me a little bit about that.

1:45:34Dan Hurley:But, you know, he believes strongly in his position. I believe strongly in my position. You know, we both agreed on the player that we were recruiting. We just disagreed on how we should get there. And Luke, he wouldn't let it go. He went too far, past the point where he fought for his idea, but it passed the line of how long he should have went with it before he should have, what do they say, you know, discuss, agree, you know, discuss, debate, but then fall in line and agree with what, you know, ultimately the person that makes the decision has decided. and in my mind he went past that and um you know i i let him know um you know verbally what i thought of it but then it also too like i take this thing personal so you know when when when i feel like somebody myself included has let down this organization um i take it real personal and And sometimes there's an emotional reaction to it, too, where, yeah, I may go a day or two where I don't talk to them.

1:46:58And I don't know if they're teaching this in leadership schools.

1:47:05Graham Bensinger:But obviously something's working because, I mean, take Luke as an example. You guys have worked together a long time. The relationship works. Why?

1:47:16Dan Hurley:Because I respect him. you know and and the only way that i'm going to respect you if you play for me or you work with me is if is if you're as if you're obsessive if you are going to obsess over this this thing we're pursuing if you can't obsess if you can't um pour everything you have into it if you're not challenging yourself to get better if you're not about excellence if you're in our circle and you're a player or a coach that is not absolutely like bringing it every day and giving absolutely everything they have into this endeavor like there's going to be friction in our relationship i'm going to look at you like you're failing us and then you will feel pressure from this group to level up and we'll work with you we will work with you we will we will try to drag you along until you could get there yourself.

1:48:13Dan Hurley:But you cannot stay in that circle too long if you can't level up. How do you view college athletics today? I think there's a lot of like really great things that it's been a long time for these players to have opportunities, to have more freedom, you know, from a financial standpoint, to be able to become a part of sharing the revenue, to have the freedom to transfer out of bad situations or situations that are bad for you. We just need more structure. We need more guardrails. We need more leadership. You can't have what's going on currently in our sport, which is total free agency all the time.

1:49:02Dan Hurley:There's no sport that functions or operates like this. But college basketball, at least on the men's side, is there's so much untapped potential with what March Madness brings to the table. It's the second most watched sporting event in America every single year, a yearly sporting event behind the Super Bowl of any sport.

1:49:29Graham Bensinger:The solution to some of the issues you mentioned would be what in your mind?

1:49:34Dan Hurley:Yeah, we need to get to a point where there are contracts involved with players. I think it's not just good for the universities in terms of getting a commitment from the players themselves. to stay and to not have so much transition on a yearly basis. Eventually, that's not going to be good for the sport because college fans, they want players that are going to be with their program for a couple of years. They don't want their team to change every year. They won't tolerate that at some point as fans. But I do think it protects the players, too, contracts, because there's a lot of schools that promise more money from an NIL standpoint than they could deliver for those players.

1:50:22Dan Hurley:And there's a lot of horror stories of players not getting what they're promised. So I think there's a lot of protections for both sides. You're how old now?

1:50:32Graham Bensinger:I'm 51. 51. You've said before you don't see coaching past 60. How do you feel about that now?

1:50:41Dan Hurley:I think it's, I don't think I'll coach much past 60 if I get to 60. What do you mean if you get to 60? I mean, if I get to 60, I don't, the way I look at it is you end up cheating a lot of people if you're not doing it to the absolute max. I mean, like treating this thing like it is an absolute sprint.

1:51:08Graham Bensinger:I've been told by people close to you though that that's a complete crock they don't know what else you would do with yourself and you'll be doing this forever I'm not talking about choosing

1:51:19Dan Hurley:to do it I'm talking about where you just get burnt and you just you physically or mentally or emotionally you go too hard for too long pushing it so hard because you don't golf and you don't take a lot of time off and you don't manage. I look at this thing for me like the way that I'm doing it is the right way to do it is that you pour everything that you have into it and treat this thing like it is the fastest sprint you've ever run in your life and then you give somebody else an opportunity to do it. I don't think me conserving energy for when I'm 65 years old so that I can keep coaching at a high level and making a lot of money is very fair to the players that you coach or young coaches that deserve an opportunity.

1:52:12Dan Hurley:Thanks for doing this, coach. Let's go, man.

1:52:16Graham Bensinger:That does it for my chat with Dan Hurley. As part of our day with him in Storrs, Connecticut, we also got to sit in on a UConn practice and coaches meeting. To see that, Head to youtube.com slash Graham Bensinger. And if you get a chance, give us a rating and review. Thanks again for listening. 30 years ago, Blinds.com broke the mold and made custom window treatments easy for everyone. Over 25 million windows later, we're celebrating by giving our customers up to 50 % off site-wide during our anniversary sale. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, Blinds.com has you covered.

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