University of Connecticut men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley contemplated stepping down from his job after last season due to the emotional drain of trying to win three national championships in a row, according to a new book co-authored by Hurley.
Hurley, 52, even had very preliminary talks with Fox Sports about becoming a television analyst, according to sources briefed on the discussions.
In his new book, “Never Stop: Life, Leadership, and What It Takes To Be Great,” which Hurley co-wrote with best-selling author and The Athletic columnist Ian O’Connor, Hurley is matter-of-fact about how close he came to walking away from the Huskies.
“I thought about leaving,” Hurley wrote. “Taking a gap year. Resigning as head coach of the UConn Huskies.”
After UConn’s second-round loss in March to eventual champion Florida, Hurley explained his frustration with coaching in the transfer and name, image and likeness era.
“I knew my mind, and I knew my body, and I could feel that I was completely cooked,” Hurley writes. “Just burnt. I didn’t even know how I was standing. I stared at the office walls, muttering, conducting a brutal review of our season. I didn’t build a strong enough roster. I wasn’t a good leader. I let everyone down in Maui. I lost control, emotionally, at various points. I came in here some days sad and defeated, when I needed to be positive and inspiring. Then I went through the self-lacerating what-ifs: What if we’d played a little bit better in Maui? What if we hadn’t blown that game against Seton Hall? What if we’d been a better seed than an eight seed and hadn’t needed to face a number one in the second round? Who knows?
“It was unhealthy to be ruminating this way. I was unhealthy. I desperately needed to get out of town, flee to my standard hideaway, Dorado Beach in San Juan. I needed to do some healing, not think about basketball for a few days. But that wasn’t possible in this new era. The transfer portal and NIL deals made every college player a free agent, so right after the tournament I needed to be in my office, in Storrs. If I left town right then, I wouldn’t have a team for the 2025-26 season.
“At that point, I wasn’t even sure that I would return for the 2025-26 season.”
Dan Hurley with some parting words for the incoming Baylor Bears after his Huskies fell to No. 1 Florida in Raleigh 👀
🎥 @Jellis1016 pic.twitter.com/eGJqk9Rjo4
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) March 23, 2025
Hurley had a conversation with Fox Sports about possibly moving to television, like former national championship Villanova coach Jay Wright had done with CBS and TNT Sports. One of Hurley’s former agents, Jordan Bazant, is a top Fox Sports executive.
“I even talked to a TV executive about doing some commentary,” Hurley continued. “The previous summer, I talked to Jay Wright about life after basketball. He said he was actually happy, sleeping. He wasn’t sick to his stomach nine months of the year.”
After retiring as the coach of Villanova, Wright was a top analyst for CBS. Wright walked away from CBS last week to focus more time as a special assistant to Villanova’s president.
For Hurley, it was the second time in as many years that he contemplated leaving UConn. The previous summer, he turned down a six-year, $70 million offer to coach LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
As in 2024, Hurley ultimately decided again to return to Storrs as the Huskies’ coach.
“Listen, I cherish my job, my players, our school, our fans, and our boosters,” Hurley wrote in the book. “I’ve got the very best job in the country with the very best program in college basketball over the last quarter century. All of that is hand-on-the-Bible true. But what’s also true is the massive toll that coaching takes on you and your family. The whole thing is exhausting. The seasons are excruciating even when they are going great. You rarely get to the national championship game and win it, so if the season ended the way I wanted it to end only two years out of my coaching life, then I was tortured for twenty-eight years. That’s a hell of a way to look at it.
“I’m not some unbreakable machine programmed to seek and destroy opposing teams and officiating crews — over and over and over again. I’m human.”
(Photo of Dan Hurley with Hassan Diarra and Samson Johnson after the Huskies were ousted from the NCAA Tournament in March: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
