It wasn’t long after the UConn men’s basketball team won the national championship when Dan Hurley said, “I’m from Jersey City, and that’s how the people from Jersey City act.”
Hurley credits the town, where he grew up and where his father doubled as a high school coach and probation officer, for nearly all of his personality traits, both positive and negative. He showed his love for the city throughout March and into April, dominating UConn all the way from Albany to Las Vegas and finally lifting the trophy in Houston.
On Tuesday, that love will be shared.
Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fulop and the city council decided to award Hurley city key Tuesday. the event It will be streamed live on the government’s “City of Jersey City” Facebook page starting at 5 p.m
“I am just fortunate to have an amazing wife, Andrea, and two wonderful sons in Danny and Andrew, who are two strong, strong Jersey people who can handle the inward and outward anxieties and pressures you feel through being in such a high profile position,” Hurley said during the team session. “The way my father has arranged it, the way Jersey City and my brother have raised me…it doesn’t bother me even when you get to its lowest point. You obviously get off at different times, but when you’re tough like Hurley, like people, it’s not so bad.”
Thank you NYSE for inviting us to ring the opening bell this morning#HU5KIES pic.twitter.com/WPg4acIMCw
– UConn Men’s Basketball (UConnMBB) April 12, 2023
Hurley, in his fifth year as head coach at UConn, began his coaching career at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey, where he also taught history. His father, Bob Sr., has been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame due to his tremendous success at St. Anthony High in Jersey City, where he won 26 state titles. Bob still hosts Hurley Family Basketball Camps in Jersey City.
In the three weeks since the blue-and-white confetti fell from the rafters in Houston, Hurley and the staff found time between player meetings and making calls for the bell-ringing at the New York Stock Exchange on April 12. He announced the NBA Draft on ESPN on April 7 with Hurley by his side, and threw the ceremonial first pitch at Camden Yards on April 13 before the Baltimore Orioles played the Oakland A’s.
Plans for the ceremonial first pitch at a New York Mets game are expected to be completed in the coming weeks, while The Athletic reported On Monday, New England’s Donovan Clingan, a Bristol native, and Alex Karaban, of Southboro, Massachusetts, planned to throw out the first pitch before a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park.
Also in the coming weeks, the team will be honored at the Capitol in Hartford for “Eskimo Day” and will eventually make its way to a celebration with President Joe Biden at the White House.