Bob Hurley

Bob Hurley
Sport(s) Basketball
Current position
Title Head coach
Biographical details
Born (1947-07-31) July 31, 1947
Jersey City, New Jersey
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1972–2017 St. Anthony HS
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
26× state championships (1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1983-1991, 1993, 1995-1997, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2016)
4× national championships
Awards
USA Today National Coach of the Year (1989, 1996, 2008)
Basketball Hall of Fame
Inducted in 2010 (profile)

Robert Emmet Hurley, Sr. (born July 31, 1947)[1] is an American basketball coach. At the now-closed St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, Hurley amassed 26 state championships [2] and more than 1000 wins in 39 years as a coach. On February 2, 2011, Hurley became the tenth coach in high school history to win 1000 games.[3] He is featured in the documentary The Street Stops Here. Five of his teams have gone undefeated. On April 5, 2010, he was announced as the only coach to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame that year and only the third high school coach in history to be so honored;[4] he was formally inducted on August 13 of that year. Hurley is the father of Bobby Hurley, a former All-American point guard at Duke and the head basketball coach at Arizona State, and Dan Hurley, who was hired in March 2018 to coach the University of Connecticut after stints at the University of Rhode Island and Wagner College, as well as nine years at Newark's Saint Benedict's Preparatory School, also one of the top high school programs in the nation.

Early life

Bob was born and raised in the Greenville section of Jersey City and grew up in St. Paul the Apostle parish, in an era when neighborhoods identified with their parishes, later attending St. Peter's Preparatory School.[5][6] His father was a police officer. Hurley attended St. Peter's College, but got cut from the varsity basketball team in his sophomore year after not being in the team's plans. He began volunteering as a coach for a Catholic Youth Organization grammar school team in his parish. He became a probation officer and held that position for 35 years, while also coaching. He retired in 2008.[7]

Career

Hurley began coaching at St. Anthony in 1972, and remained at the school through its final basketball season of 2016–17. Shortly after that season, the school announced it would close at the end of that school year.[8] St. Anthony, run by Felician Sisters, has one of New Jersey's smallest student bodies, most of whom live below or near the poverty line. Hurley has never been a teacher at or a full-time employee of St. Anthony. For most of his career, the coach remained employed as a probation officer. Thereafter, he worked for the Jersey City Recreation Department, but has since retired. He has been instrumental in the restoration of the historic Jersey City Armory to a modern sports arena.[9]

Hurley produced over 150 players to Division I basketball programs, all on full scholarships. Hurley has coached six first-round NBA draft picks, including his own son, Bobby Hurley. Hurley's undefeated 1989 team, which featured Jerry Walker, Hurley's son Bobby, Terry Dehere, and Rodrick Rhodes, was ranked first in the nation by USA Today. Three of the players on that team – Bobby Hurley, Dehere and Rhodes – were first-round choices in the NBA draft. That team won New Jersey's first Tournament of Champions and amassed 50 straight victories in a two-year span. It is generally considered one of the best teams in American history.[10] Hurley has also produced a total of five first-round NBA draft picks: his son Bobby, Dehere, Rhodes, David Rivers, Roshown McLeod and Kyle Anderson.

Hurley's 2003–04 team, also undefeated and ranked second in the nation, is the subject of The Miracle of St. Anthony,[11] a best-selling book by Adrian Wojnarowski. The book chronicles how the team marched to an unbeaten season, state title, and number 2 national ranking despite off-the-court crises and not having a single senior graduate to a Division I program.[12]

Hurley's 2007–08 squad was also undefeated, finishing with 32 wins and no losses and ranked number one in the U.S. even though no starter is taller than 6 feet 6 inches. The team had six seniors who had never won a championship at the high school, something that has never happened to one of Hurley's teams. They also won Hurley's 10th Tournament of Champions, winning its state tournament games by an average of more than 27 points per game. This is considered one of the greatest basketball teams in modern pro sports. All six of the seniors would eventually receive Division I basketball scholarships, including Mike Rosario (Rutgers; he would later transfer to Florida), Tyshawn Taylor (Kansas), Travon Woodall (Pittsburgh), Jio Fontan (Southern California) and Dominic Cheek (Villanova).[13][14][15] The Street Stops Here, a 2010 documentary narrated by Harry Lennix, reviewed Hurley's impact on St. Anthony's basketball and captured several compelling moments that season.[16] It premiered nationally on PBS on March 31, 2010, and was released on DVD.[17]

St. Anthony won 30 state championships, more than any other school in U.S. history. Hurley was the coach for 28 of those teams and an assistant coach on the other two. His teams are known for their speed, defensive intensity, and precise ball movement. Every senior to graduate from his program has won at least one state championship, with many winning several. This is considered one of the greatest career-long feats of the 20th century.

Over the years, Hurley has been offered a number of college coaching jobs, but has declined them all. He is also one of just a few high school coaches to be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Hurley is considered a top 10 high school basketball coach in the history of the United States. [18]

Family

Hurley gained national attention when his son Bobby graduated and became a four-year starter and All-American at Duke University. Bobby, along with Grant Hill and Christian Laettner, led Duke to two NCAA titles. Bobby is currently the head coach of the Arizona State University men's basketball team. He arrived at Arizona State after two seasons as head coach at the University at Buffalo; before that, he was an assistant coach for Wagner and an associate head coach for Rhode Island on the staffs of his younger brother Dan.

For a number of years, Hurley's teams were challenged for supremacy in the state by Saint Benedict's Preparatory School of Newark, which was coached until 2010 by Bob's younger son, Dan Hurley, who played for him at St. Anthony before going to Seton Hall University.[19][20] In 2008, when Bob's team was ranked number 1 in the nation, Dan's St. Benedict's squad was ranked number 2, and only a 3-point loss kept St. Benedict's from an undefeated season and a number 1 ranking of its own. Dan Hurley was hired on March 21, 2012 as the head basketball coach at Rhode Island after a two-year stint at Wagner.[21]

References

  1. ↑ "Robert "Bob" Hurley, Sr". Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on February 15, 2011. Retrieved August 14, 2010.
  2. ↑ "New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association State Championship history" (PDF). New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  3. ↑ The Hurleys Build a Dynasty by Grant Glickson, The New York Times, February 1, 2004. Accessed February 12, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Announces Class of 2010" (Press release). Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. April 5, 2010. Archived from the original on April 9, 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ Inc., CompBiz,. "The Catholic Directory - Catholic Churches in Jersey City (Hudson County), New Jersey, United States on Page 1". TheCatholicDirectory.com. Retrieved April 11, 2017.
  6. ↑ Hague, Jim. "HomeNews Sports Opinion Classifieds Entertainment Local Business Magazines Community Photos & Videos Contact Us July 9, 2018 Weather Forecast In company of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird Legendary JC Coach Hurley talks about Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction", The Hudson Reporter, August 22, 2010. Accessed July 9, 2018. "Hurley himself grew up in Jersey City. He was born and raised in the Greenville section, attending St. Paul the Apostle School, St. Peter's Prep, and St. Peter's College."
  7. ↑ Lieber, Jill (October 7, 2002). "On defense at St. Anthony's". USA Today.
  8. ↑ Borzello, Jeff (April 5, 2017). "Hall of Famer Bob Hurley Sr. says St. Anthony High to close". ESPN.com. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  9. ↑ Hague, Jim (January 15, 2006). "Historic sports palace restored Jersey City Armory enjoys grand re-opening after 4-million facelift". Hudson Reporter. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
  10. ↑ "St. Anthony Takes Title to End at 32–0". New York Times. March 20, 1989. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  11. ↑ Wojnarowski, Adrian (February 17, 2005). "The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty". Gotham. Retrieved April 11, 2017 – via Amazon.
  12. ↑ "A Basketball Miracle by Dan Ackman". Forbes.com. April 1, 2005.
  13. ↑ "A Step Closer to Perfection by Kevin Armstrong". Sports Illustrated, March 6, 2008. March 6, 2008. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  14. ↑ "St. Anthony Captures T of C Crown". The Star Ledger, March 18, 2008.
  15. ↑ "For St. Anthony, a State Title Would Be the Perfect Ending by Zachary Braziller". The New York Times. February 27, 2008. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  16. ↑ "Bob Hurley and St. Anthony: 'The Street Stops Here'". USAToday.com. Retrieved April 11, 2017.
  17. ↑ "The Street Stops Here". April 6, 2010. Retrieved April 11, 2017 – via Amazon.
  18. ↑ "A Coach Who Likes Just Being in the Present by Dave Anderson". The New York Times. February 22, 2007.
  19. ↑ "The King and Prince of High School Sports by Dan Ackman". The Wall Street Journal. January 24, 2007.
  20. ↑ "Family first: Danny Hurley has built St. Benedict's into a power by Kevin Armstrong". Sports Illustrated, December 16, 2006. December 15, 2006. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  21. ↑ "Men's Basketball". University of Rhode Island. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
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