Father-son bond: UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley, father Bob share stories at Hall of Fame

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — The Jerry Colangelo Court of Dreams took the place of the Field of Dreams on Friday afternoon.

Instead of Ken Griffey Jr. asking his dad to “have a catch” in an outfield surrounded by cornfields, it was Dan Hurley and his dad, Bob, trading stories and anecdotes inside the Basketball Hall of Fame.

A crowd of about 100 listened to two members of the “First Family of Basketball,” as they were introduced, during a question-and-answer session, followed by a few questions from the fans.

A variety of subjects were touched upon, from Bob’s abilities as a stickball pitcher and automatic quarterback when his kids were young, to Dan’s occasional forgery of notes he brought home from teachers. But one theme resonated throughout: Family — particularly the father-son bond that makes the Hurleys’ story so compelling.

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“I just think family is so important,” Dan said afterwards. “The role of a parent, a strong man or a strong woman, having strong siblings that really care about each other and get involved in each others’ lives to help each other be better … really, the impact a great coach, teacher, parent can have on your life. A great grandmother, grandfather … it’s so huge, in terms of having a really successful life.”

Dan is entering his fifth season as UConn men’s basketball’s head coach, having turned the program around from its lowest point in some 40 years to consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and growing expectations.

But he’s still got a long way to go to catch his father, who won four national championships as longtime head coach at St. Anthony’s High in Jersey City, New Jersey and “found my way into this building” — via his 2010 induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Bob remembered bringing his sons, Dan and Bobby, to this building when they were kids. They spent hours taking shots from the treadmill that used to be a feature of the Hall.

“You come in here and I thought back to coming here as a kid, his induction night, what those couple of days were like,” Dan recalled. “And the fact that, when I became conscious of who he was as a coach, he was a coach that was just beginning to break through and winning state championships and put players in Division I. To go from that to being one of the all-time great coaches, a Hall of Famer, an iconic type of coach … pure basketball people look at my dad as an icon.”

Bob said it took a while for him to get his coaching chops down.

“I apologize to everybody I coached when I was in my 20s,” he said. “I didn’t have it all together. When I had kids, I had a better sense of what my role should be.”

Among his roles at home was filming Bobby’s shooting with a hand-held camcorder. Dan recalled being in the background, behind the camera, making faces and distracting his older brother while Dad tried to teach him better mechanics.

Dan confessed that Bob was tougher on his brother than on him.

“You should have been harder on me, Dad,” Dan said, causing Bob to raise his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Wow,” Bob retorted, “I’ve never heard that before.”

These days, Bob told the crowd, he and his son talk mostly about family and sports when they get together. He sees far more of his seven grandkids than he does of his own kids — Danny Hurley Jr. lives in Jersey City, as does one of Bobby’s kids, and Andrew Hurley worked at Bob’s camp in the Poconos Mountains for a couple of weeks this summer.

But Bob’s influence rubs off on Dan virtually every day. Over the summer, while other programs may hold optional workouts or none at all, Dan has his Huskies on campus for about 10 weeks of hard workouts.

“His commitment level to his players, doing it all year-round, it’s why we’re doing what we’re doing in the summer,” Dan noted. “How hard we work, every second we have our guys on campus, is a reflection of how my dad committed to player development.”

Those summer workouts wrapped up on Friday, the day after the team held its annual intrasquad softball game (Hurley went 3-for-3 and his team won for the second straight year, though he was miffed that game MVP went to assistant coach Luke Murray, despite his deft fielding at shortstop).

Hurley will get away with his wife, Andrea, to celebrate their 25th anniversary. The other coaches will get family time, while most of the players return home for about 21/2 weeks before returning to campus to get back into the grind with their other “family.”

For Dan Hurley, family is what it’s all about.

“If you’re lucky enough to get just one great teacher in your life, it’s going to change your life,” he noted. “My life is better off not just playing for a great coach, but for my father. There may be some coaches as good as my dad, a handful. But no one’s a better coach than my dad. He’s as good as any coach of his generation.”

RIM RATTLINGS

It’s still possible that UConn fills one of its final two open scholarships, and that may come via the international route. UConn may fill its 13th and final scholarship, as well, though that is far from definite.

david.borges@hearstmediact.com