STORRS — Considering how open UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley has been about personal issues that challenged him and the unique approach that sustains him, it’s quite something to understand that only a surface-level exploration of his constitution has taken place since he arrived in Connecticut in March 2018.
Much of what’s gone unsaid, misunderstood or unappreciated over the years will be available for public consumption on Sept. 30, the release date for a book that Hurley has co-authored about his life with New York Times’ best-selling author Ian O’Connor.
“Never Stop: Life, Leadership, and What It Takes to Be Great,” traces Hurley’s early steps in a famous basketball family, details some deep personal and professional struggles, and shows what shaped him as a man and a coach before he became a two-time national champion at UConn.
Hurley, 52, began working with O’Connor in the summer of 2024, sitting for 40-50 hours of interviews to get the project started. Before and during the 2024-25 season, O’Connor reported by speaking to numerous influential figures in Hurley’s life. He was writing all along as the Huskies, with Hurley becoming a national story for his controversial behavior, worked their way through that challenging season. Large portions of the book were available for Hurley’s review when this offseason began.
“Some of the harder moments in your life, where you’re saying to yourself, ‘Should I?’” Hurley said of the process, more stressful and time-consuming than he anticipated. “Am I saying too much about myself?”
Or anyone else, for that matter. Hurley worried about angering or hurting family members, former coaches, current coaches he competes against, and so many others as he worked with O’Connor and others about what to share, what to shield.
“Am I telling too much of my story?” he wondered. “I’d turn to [wife] Andrea and say, ‘Is this too much about our marriage?’ Is this too much about my struggles? Am I being too honest? Do people do this? Should I do this? Am I being too vulnerable with this? I landed on, there’s somebody out there going through — early on in marriage, early on in family life, struggling career-wise, young person struggling, college athlete struggling, people who struggle with mental health, people who struggle with the comparison thing, which is a killer. I just stopped thinking about myself and my perception. The whole initial reason for writing a book was some leadership [insight], some examples of what you take into your professional life, life lessons, maybe an inspirational story for people having a hard time.”
The book is published by Avis Read Press/Simon & Schuster. Part of its pitch, included in press releases, reads “Hurley’s story is one of grit, resilience, and redemption. Born into basketball royalty as the son of a legendary high school coach and brother to a Duke Blue Devils icon, Dan’s path wasn’t easy. His life spiraled into a battle with mental health so severe that he once contemplated suicide. But through sheer determination, he turned his struggles into strength, stepping out of his family’s shadow to create his own legacy.”
I hope and believe that, incrementally, you’ve learned quite a bit about Hurley in this space, under my byline and in various other spaces since he took over as UConn coach. The guy is open, embraces his quirks, and is seemingly well served by discussing publicly some of his greatest joys and frustrations, his superstitions, his motivations, his red-lined approach to coaching. Hurley is an emotional tornado and it’s therapeutic for him, it seems, to open some doors and let some of them blow across our state’s landscape.
The guy is fascinating. Each time I watch him on the sideline, or sit in his office for an hour or two, I am thoroughly entertained and a little deeper into understanding a coach who grew up “Son of, Brother of,” as he has described himself. His father, Bob Hurley Sr., is a hall of fame high school basketball coach, one of the best of a generation. His older brother, Bobby Hurley, was one of the best point guards in college basketball history.
Hurley, as is on display during games, can be overbearing. He’s also incredibly easy to talk to outside of that two-hour window, self-deprecating, funnier away from the court than he is furious on it. When I wrote about him in advance of the 2023 Final Four, his priest, Father Edwin Leahy, picked up the phone and said, “Mike, I feel bad for you.”
Excuse me?
“To do a story on Danny,” Leahy said, laughing.
Hurley calls Leahy from time to time, stressed, saying, “Why do I do this, Father Ed?” Then he hangs up rather abruptly as his voice trails off.
I met with Hurley in January, when the national college basketball community was deep into a discussion of his sideline behavior, and he showed me all the new toys in his office, including a gladiator mask, a gift from his brother-in-law. That was one of maybe 10 long meetings I’ve had with Hurley over the years, many more hourlong conversations on the phone. I feel like I’ve gotten to know him and have explained him as well as possible. In our most recent meeting, at the Werth Champions Center, we talked about life and golf and Peloton workouts and last season and next season and frustration and superstition … and the book.
Collaboration on such a project includes a bit of give and take. There were times, Hurley said, when he’d want to add details to sections of what O’Connor had written, and times when he’d want to take some out. He’s read the book six or seven times with a highlighter, he said, finding ways to clarify or correct some things about his life and those in it. Through it all, he went back and forth on what to share, or to what extent.
“There were probably some things that he we had tug-o-war on,” Hurley said. “I picked Ian because he’s from Jersey and he covered my career through college and high school. He covered me at Seton Hall. Probably my favorite article I ever had written about me was after we beat St. John’s at [Madison Square Garden] and he wrote a triumphant article. I hit a 3 to send the game to overtime. He wrote probably the most gratifying article about me as a college player. He had that history with me that way. And, obviously, he’s written some excellent books.”
O’Connor, one of the country’s most decorated and accomplished sportswriters, is originally from Englewood, N.J. Now a columnist for The Athletic, he has previously worked for ESPN, the New York Daily News and other national outlets. He has written five best-selling books, on Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Belichick, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, Derek Jeter and Aaron Rodgers.
“When it’s about you, you get into this thing: should I be that honest about myself?” Hurley said. “Because I’m not always going to look strong. At different parts of my life, I was weak. Some of the parts of my life, my early coaching career up until now, or my playing career, there’s a lot in there. There’s a lot about losing your job as a coach and having a young wife and young kids and your career is [in trouble] and you’re struggling with your marriage and your wife’s disappointed in you. A lot of that in there. It just fell on, I don’t want this to be something like, you wrote a book because you won championships and it’s a chance to secure a signing bonus. Championship coaches get a chance to do that as a money grab. I didn’t want this to just be a money grab. I wanted it to be a book that was entertaining and could inspire people, great life lessons, give people hope. I think it will deliver.”
Hurley said he learned things about his family from O’Connor’s reporting that he would have never known. Parts of the process were uncomfortable, particularly chapters that detailed his struggles as a player at Seton Hall, the comparisons to his brother and the 1993 car accident that nearly took Bobby’s life.
“What you’ll be able to see, the edginess of why he lashes out, why he responds to different situations the way he does, based on the entirety of where he grew up, how he grew up, his life, his playing career, the whole thing with my brother,” Hurley said. “Some parts of it are funny. I’ll laugh at some of it. It’s well-written and it’s funny, some of these moments. I find myself laughing. I think people will like it.”
