High school coaches have taken over men’s Final Four, and they wouldn’t have it any other way

GLENDALE, AZ — Before Danny Hurley pursued history as the head coach of the UConn Huskies, he taught the subject back at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark.

“I’ve been a high school teacher that taught world history starting with the collapse of the Roman Empire, mostly focused on European history,” Hurley said ahead of the 2024 men’s Final Four. “From the Dark Ages all the way through to the Reformation.”

That wasn’t the only thing he taught.

“I’ve also taught driver’s ed, health, sex ed to coed classes at St. Anthony,” he continued. “Being able to teach sex ed at St. Anthony, coed classes, at 22 years old, you learn how to control a classroom and keep an audience captivated.”

UConn players said Hurley never misses an opportunity to flex his historical knowledge, recently lecturing the team on Alexander the Great as they made their way through March Madness. At this point, everyone knows the type of history Hurley and his team are pursuing: only three teams have won back-to-back national championships in men’s college basketball since John Wooden led UCLA to seven national titles in a row spanning the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The last team to do it was Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators, way back in 2006-2007.

“I think it’s definitely helped me as a coach in the huddle,” Hurley said of his experience as a teacher. “I think it also helps, too, if you have other jobs, besides just being a coach, I think it just helps you with perspective a little bit, too.”

Okay, Hurley’s rise from the high school ranks to college basketball’s biggest stage didn’t exactly happen without any connections. He’s one of the biggest nepo-babies in the sport. Hurley’s father Bob Hurley Sr. might be the greatest high school coach of all-time at the aforementioned St. Anthony High School in Jersey City. His older brother Bobby Hurley is a college basketball legend who once starred on a repeat national championship winner at Duke alongside Christian Laettner.

Hurley’s colleagues in the Final Four didn’t have the same familial advantages, but two of them also clawed their way up from the high school level.

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Alabama coach Nate Oats was teaching math classes and coaching basketball at Detroit’s Romulus High School only 10 years ago. NC State coach Kevin Keatts was at Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia. All three former high school coaches hope their stories inspire younger coaches still looking for the opportunity to break in at a higher level.

“The high school job I had wasn’t one of these they pay you a bunch of money just to be the basketball coach,” Oats said on Friday. “I had to teach a full-time teaching load. I was teaching five hours of math at Romulus. I taught Algebra 1, I taught geometry. I had freshmen, I had sophomores. I taught statistics so I had juniors or seniors. I literally had my players dang near every year, their freshman year up through math classes.”

Funny enough, Oats got his big break in college coaching thanks to the Hurleys. Oats coached a player named E.C. Matthews at Romulus who Dan Hurley recruited at his previous job with the Rhode Island Rams. Oats was so impressive that Hurley’s brother Bobby eventually hired him on his staff at Buffalo.

“The high school job I had wasn’t one of these they pay you a bunch of money just to be the basketball coach,” Oats said. “I had to teach a full-time teaching load. I was teaching five hours of math at Romulus. I taught Algebra 1, I taught geometry. I had freshmen, I had sophomores. I taught statistics so I had juniors or seniors. I literally had my players dang near every year, their freshman year up through math classes.”

Oats was working after-school programs for a few thousand dollars on the side to get his salary up to $70K per year at Romulus. He used to come to the Final Four and sleep on the floor at his friends’ hotel rooms just to network with other coaches. Only a few years later, his astounding ascension in the coaching world began in earnest.

When Bobby Hurley eventually left Buffalo for the Arizona State job, Oats was promoted to the head job with a $250K salary. He led Buffalo to the NCAA tournament out of the MAC three times in his four seasons, including an incredible win over Arizona and future No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Deandre Ayton back in 2018.

Alabama eventually hired Oats to coach in the SEC. After four straight trips to the NCAA tournament and a handful of conference titles, the Tide extended him on his current deal which pays him $4.5 million annually.

“I think there’s a lot of really good high school coaches,” Oats said. “I went up against some in metro Detroit area. I’ve gotten to know a lot of them. Shoot, I still steal drills when I go on recruiting trips to see different high school coaches work.

“I was fortunate. I got some breaks. I think there’s a lot of really good high school coaches that never got a break.”

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Kevin Keatts built one of the country’s top high school programs at Hargrave in Virginia. That doesn’t mean it was always glamorous.

“I drove the bus at Hargrave,” Keatts said before NC State’s Elite Eight win over Duke. “I pumped the gas. I swept the floor. I washed the clothes.”

Keatts got to the college level the old fashioned way: by riding the coattails of his best players. Louisville hired Keatts as an assistant for his strong connections to top recruits. The Cardinals landed a few former Hargrave stars with Keatts on staff. One of them was Montrezl Harrell, who went on to a long and successful NBA career. Another was Luke Hancock, who would be named Most Outstanding Player of the 2013 Final Four as Louisville claimed the national championship.

Louisville’s success made Keatts a hot commodity for head coaching openings. NC State eventually hired him in 2018. Keatts’ run in Raleigh looked like it might finally be over after this season until his team’s charmed run in March: five wins in five days earned NC State an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, and Keatts an automatic contract extension that took him off the hot seat. With four more wins in the big dance as a No. 11 seed, NC State has written a story fit for Hollywood. Keatts has the background for it.

“Some of the best coaches in the world are high school guys,” Keatts said. “They’re doing the same thing that we’re doing, but they’re not making a lot of money to do it. At that level, some coaches get a stipend or maybe $2,000, $2,500 to do their job, and they do it for the love of the game. I think that’s what is so special about it.”

There’s a rich layer of text behind every tangled coaching web in the NCAA tournament. Three former high school coaches likely wouldn’t be in the Final Four this year if it wasn’t for one man who never left that level.

Bob Hurley Sr. coached at St. Anthony his entire career, from 1972–2017. For much of that time, he worked as a probation officer on the side to make ends meet. Hurley is one of three high school coaches in the Basketball Hall of Fame, being enshrined alongside Scottie Pippen and Karl Malone in 2010.

The elder Hurley had a chance to jump to the college level in the mid-80s when Xavier offered him an assistant job. He initially thought he was going to accept it, but there was only one problem: his two young boys, Bobby and Danny, threw a fit. They dreamed about starring at St. Anthony and didn’t want to pack up their lives for southern Ohio just as they were about to get their chance.

Hurley’s grandson Andrew didn’t throw the same tantrum when his father Dan told him he was leaving St. Benedict to take the Wagner job in 2010.

“Every move that my father made we always made as a family,” Andrew Hurley, a current walk-on at UConn, told SB Nation ahead of the Final Four. “I never had any room to complain.”

As the youngest Hurley was speaking to me, Dan Hurley came up from behind to interrupt our conversation.

“It’s all lies,” the UConn head coach said. “Everything he says is a lie!”

Andrew needed a moment to collect himself. “Yeah, he’s the worst,” Andrew said of his dad with a smile.

Dreams really can become reality for the high school coaches grinding to get to the top of the sport. Three coaches here in Phoenix are proof of exactly that — just as long as your kids aren’t too annoying about it.