tk13
05-15-2005, 01:41 AM
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/baseball/mlb/kansas_city_royals/11649236.htm
Hurley still crazy in love with Royals
JOE POSNANSKI
Here's the scenario that plays out again and again: I stand in front of a class of students. Maybe it's third grade, maybe 12th.
I ask if any of them are Kansas City Royals fans.
An embarrassed hush saturates the room. Always. So much of school is being cool — or hip or bad or fly or whatever it is the kids call cool today. The Royals are decidedly not cool. They are, in fact, the opposite of cool. They are losers. The kids are not old enough to remember the Royals as contenders. Seventh-graders were born after George Brett retired. High school juniors were 6 when the strike canceled the World Series.
Here's all they know about the Royals: They lose. And they stink. And anytime the Royals get even a slightly cool player — Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye, Carlos Beltran — they soon make a trade because they cannot afford to pay fair salaries.
This is the only Royals any of them have ever known. And so, when I ask if there are any Royals fans, there is an uncomfortable silence, and then, inevitably, a few wisecracks, a few “Royals stink” or “I like the Yankees” or “Go Chiefs.” But every time I've asked, something strange and terrific happens. One kid — he or she tends to sit in the front of the class — begins to raise a hand. He might wear glasses. She might have a ribbon in her hair. But they raise their hands, carefully at first, then with a little more boldness even as the booing and hooting goes on around them.
This is for those brave little Royals fans who raise their hands.
This is the story of Dan Hurley, son of the best and toughest high school basketball coach anywhere and almost certainly the only Royals fan to grow up in Jersey City, N.J.
***
Nobody defies coach Bob Hurley. Nobody. His amazing story is told in Adrian Wojnarowski's wonderful book The Miracle of St. Anthony. I can't do the story justice here. Buy the book. Trust me. You won't soon forget it.
Let's just say that St. Anthony's High School in Jersey City, N.J., faces the most overwhelming odds — it has taken superhuman efforts by Hurley and a couple of nuns just to keep the little Catholic school alive. And yet somehow, year after year, Bob Hurley's teams win basketball games. His kids go to college. Hurley's record is 847-97. His team has won 22 state titles and twice won USA Today high school national championships.
He pulls off this miracle with a ferocious love, an extraordinary knowledge of the game, an old-fashioned and edgy competitiveness. Also, he yells a lot. A lot.
Bob Hurley is a hard man to live up to.
His long shadow has affected his two sons differently. Bobby Hurley, the oldest, had to be perfect. Perfect student. Perfect point guard. So he was. He was a star at St. Anthony's and class salutatorian. He went to Duke. He guided the Blue Devils to two national championships. He was an NBA lottery pick. Bobby was so gritty, so determined to win, so filled with his father's passion. He had to become a star. And he did.
Danny Hurley was different. He was a terrific high school basketball player and a useful college player at Seton Hall, but he did not have his older brother's single-minded focus. “He just had a tunnel vision that I didn't have,” Danny says in the book.
No, Danny tried to go his own way. This crossed into every part of his life, even sports fanhood. While Bob and Bobby loved the Boston Celtics — this was when Kevin McHale wriggled around the basket, when Dennis Johnson clamped on the defense, when Larry Bird conducted the symphony — Danny decided to love the hometown New York Knicks.
Bob and Bobby tormented him endlessly.
But that was nothing compared with his love of the Kansas City Royals.
Danny was watching a game in 1983, a Royals-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. It was the ninth inning, and the Yankees led by a run. There were two outs. Goose Gossage was throwing fastballs for the Yankees. George Brett was leaning back in the batter's box for the Royals. Gossage threw a 294-mph fastball high. Brett hit it to Brooklyn. Danny thought that was pretty cool.
Then, Yankees manager Billy Martin rushed out of the dugout, cited Rule 1.10(b) — the pine tar rule — and umpire Tim McClelland took the bat, placed it across home plate and ruled that pine tar was spread too high on the bat. He turned to the dugout and called Brett out.
And George Brett ran out of the dugout like a crazy man.
And, just like that, Danny Hurley fell in mad love with a baseball team.
“It was just incredible,” Dan says now. Even now, he cannot describe how it made him feel to see Brett tear out of that dugout, that wild animal look on his face. This was a man who wanted to win. No. This was a man who would win, who was all about winning. Danny Hurley had seen that look around the house a few times before.
Ten-year-old Danny Hurley had found his baseball team.
***
At first, it was pretty easy to be a Royals fan in Jersey. The Royals won a lot back then. They made the playoffs in 1984, won the World Series in 1985. And the Yankees stunk anyway. Of course, his dad would lay into him: “How can a kid born and raised in New Jersey like the Kansas City Royals?” he would grumble all summer long. But Danny had his defense; he had Frank White and Dan Quisenberry and Bret Saberhagen and, especially, George Brett.
“Even my dad had to admire George Brett,” Dan says now. “I mean, that was a ballplayer … He tried to break me. He tried all the time. He would say, ‘It's not natural.' But I don't know, there was something about the Royals that got in my blood, I guess.”
By the time Danny Hurley went to Seton Hall to play basketball, the Royals had already begun their descent. Danny had a rough time at Seton Hall. He got booed. He quit the team for a while. He stopped going to classes. He felt the intense pressure of being Bob Hurley's son and Bobby Hurley's little brother.
And then, he put it back together. He rejoined the team, played well, graduated from school, went into coaching. By then, his Royals were awful. Dan Hurley just stuck with them. He can't explain why. He just found that this little baseball team in the middle of the country, more than 1,000 miles away, with its fountains and blue uniforms and small payrolls and constantly changing plans, had gotten inside him.
“I guess I'm a pretty loyal person,” he says.
Now Dan wears his Royals hat all summer. He hangs up his Royals pennants in his office (along with some pine tar). He goes to Royals-Yankees games at Yankee Stadium. Last year, he took his brother Bobby, and they each took their oldest child, and they rooted against each other.
“There's Carlos Beltran,” Dan said.
“Yeah, take a picture,” Bobby said. “Next year he'll be on the other side.”
“Some team I picked,” Dan says now.
Danny buys the Major League Baseball satellite package just so he can watch Royals games. That's where you'll find him most evenings, sitting in front of the television, watching Royals baseball, trying to find a little light in the fog.
“If I see Zack Greinke pitch well, or Denny Bautista like he did earlier this year at Anaheim,” Danny says, “that will carry me for a week. You know, I don't ask for a lot. I just want a little hope, something to get me through. If I see Mark Teahen get a couple of hits, that makes me feel good.
“But I'm not going to lie to you. If the game is like 12-2, I can't even watch the whole thing. I just can't do that to myself. I'll fast forward through it and just watch the young guys.”
For all this, Bob Hurley is convinced that his youngest son is certifiably nuts.
***
Ah, but father-son relationships are tricky things. All the time, it seemed like Danny was trying to break from his father's gargantuan legacy. But then, when the chance to become basketball coach at St. Benedict's opened up, Danny grabbed it. And so now Bob Hurley's youngest son coaches high school basketball in northern New Jersey.
And he's one heck of a coach. In four years, he has won three New Jersey prep championships. He has coached one player already in the NBA (J.R. Smith) and numerous major recruits including Alex Galindo, who came to Kansas last season, played reasonably well at times, and then transferred out. Danny has a team that next year might be one of America's best.
Yes, Danny coaches like his father. He is intense and focused and sarcastic and bright and dedicated to changing lives. He gets offers. Money. Prestige. Bright future. He's only 32 — there's no doubt that he could be a major college coach if he wants. But, like his father, Dan Hurley passes up the chance. He talks about building the tradition. He talks about coaching at St. Benedict's for 20 or 30 years.
Bob Hurley says that when he retires, he wants to be Danny's assistant coach.
So, yes, Dan walks in the steps of his old man.
And he is still a Royals fan.
“It's funny, in all these subconscious ways, my father inspired me to be like him,” Dan says. “But he couldn't talk me out of being a Royals fan. Without even trying, he could make me take a high school job, give up all the big dreams, give up money, all of that.
“But even with all that, he couldn't talk me out of rooting for Jaime Cerda to get someone out.”
Dan Hurley laughs.
“Loving the Royals is a pretty powerful thing,” he says.
http://www.kansascity.com/images/kansascity/kansascitystar/news/HSP_7_PREPBB_LAGO_SCHULTZ.jpg
RICH SCHULTZ/The Star-Ledger
Danny Hurley, now a high school basketball coach, has satellite TV just to watch Royals games.
Hurley still crazy in love with Royals
JOE POSNANSKI
Here's the scenario that plays out again and again: I stand in front of a class of students. Maybe it's third grade, maybe 12th.
I ask if any of them are Kansas City Royals fans.
An embarrassed hush saturates the room. Always. So much of school is being cool — or hip or bad or fly or whatever it is the kids call cool today. The Royals are decidedly not cool. They are, in fact, the opposite of cool. They are losers. The kids are not old enough to remember the Royals as contenders. Seventh-graders were born after George Brett retired. High school juniors were 6 when the strike canceled the World Series.
Here's all they know about the Royals: They lose. And they stink. And anytime the Royals get even a slightly cool player — Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye, Carlos Beltran — they soon make a trade because they cannot afford to pay fair salaries.
This is the only Royals any of them have ever known. And so, when I ask if there are any Royals fans, there is an uncomfortable silence, and then, inevitably, a few wisecracks, a few “Royals stink” or “I like the Yankees” or “Go Chiefs.” But every time I've asked, something strange and terrific happens. One kid — he or she tends to sit in the front of the class — begins to raise a hand. He might wear glasses. She might have a ribbon in her hair. But they raise their hands, carefully at first, then with a little more boldness even as the booing and hooting goes on around them.
This is for those brave little Royals fans who raise their hands.
This is the story of Dan Hurley, son of the best and toughest high school basketball coach anywhere and almost certainly the only Royals fan to grow up in Jersey City, N.J.
***
Nobody defies coach Bob Hurley. Nobody. His amazing story is told in Adrian Wojnarowski's wonderful book The Miracle of St. Anthony. I can't do the story justice here. Buy the book. Trust me. You won't soon forget it.
Let's just say that St. Anthony's High School in Jersey City, N.J., faces the most overwhelming odds — it has taken superhuman efforts by Hurley and a couple of nuns just to keep the little Catholic school alive. And yet somehow, year after year, Bob Hurley's teams win basketball games. His kids go to college. Hurley's record is 847-97. His team has won 22 state titles and twice won USA Today high school national championships.
He pulls off this miracle with a ferocious love, an extraordinary knowledge of the game, an old-fashioned and edgy competitiveness. Also, he yells a lot. A lot.
Bob Hurley is a hard man to live up to.
His long shadow has affected his two sons differently. Bobby Hurley, the oldest, had to be perfect. Perfect student. Perfect point guard. So he was. He was a star at St. Anthony's and class salutatorian. He went to Duke. He guided the Blue Devils to two national championships. He was an NBA lottery pick. Bobby was so gritty, so determined to win, so filled with his father's passion. He had to become a star. And he did.
Danny Hurley was different. He was a terrific high school basketball player and a useful college player at Seton Hall, but he did not have his older brother's single-minded focus. “He just had a tunnel vision that I didn't have,” Danny says in the book.
No, Danny tried to go his own way. This crossed into every part of his life, even sports fanhood. While Bob and Bobby loved the Boston Celtics — this was when Kevin McHale wriggled around the basket, when Dennis Johnson clamped on the defense, when Larry Bird conducted the symphony — Danny decided to love the hometown New York Knicks.
Bob and Bobby tormented him endlessly.
But that was nothing compared with his love of the Kansas City Royals.
Danny was watching a game in 1983, a Royals-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. It was the ninth inning, and the Yankees led by a run. There were two outs. Goose Gossage was throwing fastballs for the Yankees. George Brett was leaning back in the batter's box for the Royals. Gossage threw a 294-mph fastball high. Brett hit it to Brooklyn. Danny thought that was pretty cool.
Then, Yankees manager Billy Martin rushed out of the dugout, cited Rule 1.10(b) — the pine tar rule — and umpire Tim McClelland took the bat, placed it across home plate and ruled that pine tar was spread too high on the bat. He turned to the dugout and called Brett out.
And George Brett ran out of the dugout like a crazy man.
And, just like that, Danny Hurley fell in mad love with a baseball team.
“It was just incredible,” Dan says now. Even now, he cannot describe how it made him feel to see Brett tear out of that dugout, that wild animal look on his face. This was a man who wanted to win. No. This was a man who would win, who was all about winning. Danny Hurley had seen that look around the house a few times before.
Ten-year-old Danny Hurley had found his baseball team.
***
At first, it was pretty easy to be a Royals fan in Jersey. The Royals won a lot back then. They made the playoffs in 1984, won the World Series in 1985. And the Yankees stunk anyway. Of course, his dad would lay into him: “How can a kid born and raised in New Jersey like the Kansas City Royals?” he would grumble all summer long. But Danny had his defense; he had Frank White and Dan Quisenberry and Bret Saberhagen and, especially, George Brett.
“Even my dad had to admire George Brett,” Dan says now. “I mean, that was a ballplayer … He tried to break me. He tried all the time. He would say, ‘It's not natural.' But I don't know, there was something about the Royals that got in my blood, I guess.”
By the time Danny Hurley went to Seton Hall to play basketball, the Royals had already begun their descent. Danny had a rough time at Seton Hall. He got booed. He quit the team for a while. He stopped going to classes. He felt the intense pressure of being Bob Hurley's son and Bobby Hurley's little brother.
And then, he put it back together. He rejoined the team, played well, graduated from school, went into coaching. By then, his Royals were awful. Dan Hurley just stuck with them. He can't explain why. He just found that this little baseball team in the middle of the country, more than 1,000 miles away, with its fountains and blue uniforms and small payrolls and constantly changing plans, had gotten inside him.
“I guess I'm a pretty loyal person,” he says.
Now Dan wears his Royals hat all summer. He hangs up his Royals pennants in his office (along with some pine tar). He goes to Royals-Yankees games at Yankee Stadium. Last year, he took his brother Bobby, and they each took their oldest child, and they rooted against each other.
“There's Carlos Beltran,” Dan said.
“Yeah, take a picture,” Bobby said. “Next year he'll be on the other side.”
“Some team I picked,” Dan says now.
Danny buys the Major League Baseball satellite package just so he can watch Royals games. That's where you'll find him most evenings, sitting in front of the television, watching Royals baseball, trying to find a little light in the fog.
“If I see Zack Greinke pitch well, or Denny Bautista like he did earlier this year at Anaheim,” Danny says, “that will carry me for a week. You know, I don't ask for a lot. I just want a little hope, something to get me through. If I see Mark Teahen get a couple of hits, that makes me feel good.
“But I'm not going to lie to you. If the game is like 12-2, I can't even watch the whole thing. I just can't do that to myself. I'll fast forward through it and just watch the young guys.”
For all this, Bob Hurley is convinced that his youngest son is certifiably nuts.
***
Ah, but father-son relationships are tricky things. All the time, it seemed like Danny was trying to break from his father's gargantuan legacy. But then, when the chance to become basketball coach at St. Benedict's opened up, Danny grabbed it. And so now Bob Hurley's youngest son coaches high school basketball in northern New Jersey.
And he's one heck of a coach. In four years, he has won three New Jersey prep championships. He has coached one player already in the NBA (J.R. Smith) and numerous major recruits including Alex Galindo, who came to Kansas last season, played reasonably well at times, and then transferred out. Danny has a team that next year might be one of America's best.
Yes, Danny coaches like his father. He is intense and focused and sarcastic and bright and dedicated to changing lives. He gets offers. Money. Prestige. Bright future. He's only 32 — there's no doubt that he could be a major college coach if he wants. But, like his father, Dan Hurley passes up the chance. He talks about building the tradition. He talks about coaching at St. Benedict's for 20 or 30 years.
Bob Hurley says that when he retires, he wants to be Danny's assistant coach.
So, yes, Dan walks in the steps of his old man.
And he is still a Royals fan.
“It's funny, in all these subconscious ways, my father inspired me to be like him,” Dan says. “But he couldn't talk me out of being a Royals fan. Without even trying, he could make me take a high school job, give up all the big dreams, give up money, all of that.
“But even with all that, he couldn't talk me out of rooting for Jaime Cerda to get someone out.”
Dan Hurley laughs.
“Loving the Royals is a pretty powerful thing,” he says.
http://www.kansascity.com/images/kansascity/kansascitystar/news/HSP_7_PREPBB_LAGO_SCHULTZ.jpg
RICH SCHULTZ/The Star-Ledger
Danny Hurley, now a high school basketball coach, has satellite TV just to watch Royals games.