Why did Dan Hurley take on the challenge at UConn? Because he’s no, um, chicken
Dana O'Neil Oct 23, 2018 / The ATHLETIC
STORRS, Conn. — Dan Hurley will not touch the chickens. He will look at them. He will show them to recruits. He will not touch them. He is something of a germaphobe and nothing of an animal lover. The one time he deigned to carry one of the family dogs, he put on a pair of rubber gloves. It would stand to reason, then, that picking up poultry is out.
Yet Dan Hurley owns the chickens. Ten of them, to be exact (though poor Jackie has a nasty case of bumblefoot and probably isn’t long for this world). Eight reside in the garage. They’re just babies, purchased on IdealPoultry.com for a mere $25, and still growing under the red lights. Soon enough they’ll join the old girls, bumble-footing Jackie (if she hangs on) and Oprah, in an MTV Crib-worthy coop that sits in the Hurleys’ backyard. The place is scrubbed and bleached to perfection, with pretty pictures hanging on the wall. Unfortunately, the purchased chandelier had to be returned. Too expensive to run the electricity.
This is, of course, absurd. Yes, the chandelier, but the big picture is even more ludicrous. The big picture is that Dan Hurley — who still has his Jersey City tough-guy accent and coaches like the love child of the Tasmanian Devil and the Incredible Hulk; who was raised in a high-rise apartment, where the nearest chicken came deep fried in a red-and-white striped bucket; whose blue-collar father was a probation officer who moonlighted as a coaching legend — owns chickens.
What in the ever-loving name of Colonel Sanders is going on here? “They kinda came with the house,’’ Hurley’s wife, Andrea, explains of the new family home in Glastonbury, Connecticut. I suppose it fits, if you think about it. For if the chickens had not come home to roost at UConn this year, Hurley might still be living fowl-free in Rhode Island.
The candle flame flickers on Hurley’s desk, infusing the office with a bit of aromatherapy that seems about as in line with his personality as the chickens. This is the man Andrea calls “the most interesting man in the world,’’ (presumably predating the Dos Equis commercial), a living, breathing dichotomy. Hurley is so Type A that his wife has to pack his travel-day suitcase just right or else he won’t walk out the door. Yet he will not start his day without his meditation and journal-writing. If there is such a thing as ZenMasterNutJob, Hurley is it.
The yin and yang to his existence have served him well in his new gig. UConn is different from Hurley’s earlier stops. Wagner and Rhode Island suited him, the underdog programs perfect for the feisty kid brother of a former Duke All-American. There is nothing underdog about UConn, as the four national championship trophies lined up on a side table in Hurley’s office will attest. But Hurley, raised to believe hard work is the antidote to any problem, warmed to the job mostly because it was out of his comfort zone. “How could you play it safe in life? How could you not challenge yourself, to see how great you can be?” he says of his reasoning for taking the job. “There’s nothing worse than being at a place where there’s apathy. I love delusional. I want delusional. I’d rather have sickos tweeting at me things that are completely unrealistic. At least they care.’’
Hurley’s hiring was universally lauded, UConn landing on absolutely the right man at the right time. The Huskies need his unique blend of calm and firebrand as much as, if not more than, Wagner and Rhode Island did. UConn is like Andrea’s chicken coop, built on good bones but in need of someone to bleach the crap out of it.
Rather than successes, the school lately has been known for its messes, sandwiching a national championship between two coaching changes (one voluntary; one not) and two NCAA investigations (one processed, one ongoing) over the last seven years. The short version of the situation goes like this: The NCAA sanctioned long-time coach Jim Calhoun for recruiting violations in 2011, suspending him for three games and banning the Huskies from postseason play. He retired in September of the following year, too late for the university to conduct any sort of real search, allowing his assistant and hand-picked successor, Kevin Ollie, to take over. Ollie, a former UConn star, weathered the ban and promptly won a national title the next year, in 2014, skyrocketing his appeal.
Four years and back-to-back lousy seasons later, the university fired Ollie, drawing a line when it said the dismissal was for just cause and thereby the school needn’t pay him the remaining $10 million on his contract. (It is worth noting the school is cash-strapped, thanks to declining state funding and the money drain more commonly known as football.) Thus ensued an ugly divorce with Ollie threatening a lawsuit and the university refusing to divulge exactly what was just about its causes to terminate.
Earlier this month, the NCAA ended the mystery, dropping a notice of allegations on the school that claims Ollie committed various recruiting violations, and — more damning — provided false or misleading information during the investigation. He could be hit with a show-cause penalty, though he has contended through his lawyers that the allegations are untrue, and the school could suffer as well. Under the NCAA’s new penalty structure, Calhoun’s violations count as “aggravating factors’’ and could lead to harsher penalties.
“We’re just being very aware of how we are communicating with our current players and their families, and recruits and their families,’’ Hurley says. “What (athletic director) David Benedict and our president have told me before I was hired has been very accurate.’’ Hurley also has some protection. According to sources, his contract includes a clause that will give him more time should the program get hit with serious NCAA penalties.
But the stain of the NCAA infractions is not the only reason UConn needs a good scrubbing. The whole place needed a cleansing, lazily wallowing in contentment that more closely resembled stagnancy when Hurley arrived. It’s not an uncommon affliction for programs with successful pasts, a lack of realization that, to recruits, what you’ve done is nowhere near as important as what you can do for me. “The number one thing for me is I demand that my players be at their best level, so we need to put our money where our mouth is,’’ Hurley says. “Everything around them needs to be at the level I demand they be at.’’
Though at home Andrea insists — and Dan agrees — she could purchase a new set of furniture without him noticing, nothing gets past him when it comes to basketball. Every detail matters, and consequently he admits, without apology, that he’s been getting in everybody’s business to get things just right.
That includes a reworking of the entrance to the Werth Family practice facility, making it more of a front door that showcases the Huskies’ success by moving the national championship trophies out of Hurley’s office, where no one can see them, to the front of the house. The weight room has been gutted, and the coaches’ offices are on their second iteration since Hurley took over, the first not quite to his liking. The antiquated locker rooms at Gampel Pavilion also are being renovated, all of it in keeping with the motto he preaches daily: “We can’t do this here. This is UConn.’’
After he’d experienced a handful of workouts under Hurley, Jalen Adams decided to call his buddy Jared Terrell. Adams knew Hurley’s reputation as a taskmaster but figured the coach was going extra hard to get his new players’ attention. He expected Terrell, who played under Hurley for four seasons at Rhode Island, to tell him as much. “Nope, that’s the way it is. All season,’’ Adams recalls Terrell telling him. “I’m thinking, ‘Man this dude is crazy.’’’ Then Adams pauses. “But I needed it.’’
The way Hurley sees it, the Huskies were caught in a vortex. Losing sucks confidence out the players, a lack of confidence robs a person of hope, and hopelessness begets a why bother attitude? Last year UConn had clearly spiraled down the rabbit hole en route to a 14-18 finish. The Huskies were not good at anything. They ranked 194th nationally in scoring defense (73 points per game) and 320th in scoring (68 points per game); 297th in 3-point field goal percentage (32 percent) and 320th in field goal percentage (41 percent); 321st in assist-to-turnover ratio (0.8) and 342nd in assists (10.4). It’s not just that they stopped trying. It was worse. They stopped caring. “Not to be overly dramatic about it, but they were wounded. It was like being in an animal shelter,’’ Hurley says. “They were beat up. This is not what you sign up for when you sign on to play at UConn.’’
In his last two seasons at Rhode Island, Hurley won 51 games, including a pair of NCAA Tournament games. (Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports)
Hurley’s first goal: forcing them to care again. He did it the only way he knew how, the way his father made him care when he was a kid. He made everything a competition. Win a drill, earn a point. Lose a drill and instead of going to the back of the line and waiting your turn, you run the length of the court against the other guys who lost. Win the run, earn a point. Each summer session ended with a leaderboard, the player at the top given nothing but bragging rights. “When everything is a competition, all you want to do is win,’’ Adams says.
Along with forcing the players to care about winning, Hurley made sure they cared about each other. He used equal parts commiseration and camaraderie, bonding the team with his madder-than-a-wet-hen approach. He roused the players out of bed at 6 a.m. and then greeted them with unrelenting critiques. “I mean, sometimes it can be hard because it’s yelling all the time,’’ says sophomore Josh Carlson. “But if you stop and listen to the words he’s saying, it makes sense. Look at what he’s done. You’d be crazy not to listen to what he says.’’ Then Hurley brought his own yang to the yin, incorporating the same decompressing strategies he uses on himself with his team. He instituted a weekly book club, designed more to get the players to share their thoughts and opinions than actually finish the assigned book, and invited them over to his house for barbecues and pool parties.
How it pans out this season remains to be seen. The Huskies do not have the roster to play Hurley’s preferred turnover-producing man defense, but he believes this group has the parts to surprise people. (Help is on the way. Hurley already has made recruiting waves, earning commitments from four-star guards James Bouknight and Jalen Gaffney.) The team already undoubtedly feels better about itself. During one of those pool parties, the Huskies created a now-viral video. Adams hatched the idea while watching Kwintin “Jump Man” Williams create spectacular dunks off the diving board. It took only three takes, Gilbert scooping the final pass out of the water before tossing it to Williams for the exclamation point. Hurley, who has his own viral dunking video, says he could have participated but opted not to.
“I was too busy grilling,’’ he says.
No, he was not charring the chickens.
So about the birds. Here’s how Dan Hurley became a chicken farmer. Andrea checked out more than 15 houses, but none were suitable for the donor dinners that UConn requested the Hurleys host. Her frustrated real estate agent started cold-calling people to see if they might sell. One gentleman in Glastonbury bit. The Hurleys did a quick walk-through, deemed the place ideal and agreed to purchase it.
Except because the property wasn’t officially for sale, there was no actual listing, so it wasn’t until the closing that the Hurleys learned exactly what came with the home. “They said, ‘OK, the chickens are included,’’’ Andrea says. “And I was like, ‘What the hell are you talking about? What chickens?’ We hadn’t even noticed.’’ Which is how Andrea and Dan met Jackie, Oprah and the late Caroline. (Andrea named them.) Hurley barely tolerates the boxer and Yorkie that live with him (“Unless the dogs wear underwear, they aren’t going to be where I am,’’ is a favorite saying) and planned for an immediate chicken relocation. “I cannot own chickens,” he says. “If the guys I went to school with knew I owned chickens … I mean, c’mon, I’m from Jersey City, for God’s sake.’’
Andrea mounted a campaign to keep the chickens. The Hurleys’ oldest son is at college, their second already a high school junior, and with Hurley preoccupied with resuscitating UConn, the chickens, she argued would be her project. “Fine. I figured the chickens could fill my void,’’ Dan says, jokingly. Sort of. “I figured by the time we’re really good, the chickens will be old.’’ With her husband’s blessing and armed with her Hunter rain boots, a shower cap, a gas mask befitting an asbestos remover and the confidence boost that both Kristin Cavallari and Jennifer Garner own chickens, Andrea went in to clean the coop … and promptly realized Cavallari and Garner probably have people for such dirty jobs. “It’s just like Fear Factor,’’ Andrea told herself as she shoveled chicken poop and mice scurried around her feet.
Undaunted Andrea finished the cleanup, decorated the coop — a sign outside reads, “Last One In Is A Rotten Egg’’ — and educated herself on all things chicken. She learned Jackie’s bumblefoot required an Epsom salt bath and crafted a menu of preferred organic vegetables and fruit. “My son gets a Pop-Tart for breakfast,’’ she says. And upon realizing that Oprah and Jackie were too old to lay eggs, Andrea did what any Jersey girl would do when confronted with a retail problem — she did some online shopping. Chicks, it turns out, are cheap (or is it cheep?) and in order to meet the $25 minimum shipping order, the Hurleys wound up with eight more fowl friends. “I’ll look at them once a day, maybe watch them for about 10 minutes,’’ says Dan, who holds the naming rights for one bird but is waiting for it to grow before settling on a choice. “After that, I pretty much lose interest.’’
Hurley says he has put his foot down, and there will be no additional animals. “No llamas. No. Nothing else,’’ he says. Andrea, let’s say, is not on the same page. She’s already done a little investigating. Turns out you can purchase goats, peacocks and even a pot-bellied pig online. She figures spring would be a good time to add to the menagerie. “He’s so busy trying to get everything at UConn right, he won’t even notice,’’ she says.
Hey, a man can only rule so many roosts.
