Thomas Griffin 3/26/25
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Let Us Begin: New Book on the Life and Power of St. Francis
Head Coach Dan Hurley recently led the UCONN Huskies to two consecutive NCAA men’s basketball championships. This year, the team ended their season after their second game in the tournament. Hurley’s emotional response following the game has been circulating inside and outside of the sports world. Coach Hurley shed tears speaking about his love for his players and for the fight they played this season. His response gives perspective on both the intention and goal of sports. Much of which can be aligned with the Christian life.
“This year’s been a real battle,” Hurley said. “We’ve battled and we’ve had to battle, battle and battle. At times, I don’t think we liked each other a whole lot with some of the things we had to go through together. But I don’t think I’ll ever love a team more than how hard they fought for what we were trying to accomplish and for the honor they played with today.”
The Huskies barely qualified for the tournament this year because of their shaky season. Hurley’s remarks here point to some tension that existed within their locker room this season. Despite that tension, they remained a team and stuck together. The goal of sports is not simply to win but to come together behind a common purpose and work together on a mission that is bigger than yourself.
Similar to the Christian life, we know that we need one another. Life is a team sport that requires trust and relationship. It also requires that we don’t desert each other when things become challenging or simply because we have a disagreement. The more that we stick together, the more that we are glued to those around us (on our team, at home or at work). Then we begin to see that those who we are close with begin to change the trajectory of our lives.
“They change your life. Young men like that change your life,” Hurley said about a few star players on his team. “I was a coach, not necessarily on the hot seat going into 2023 — you’ve got to ask [UConn athletic director] Dave Bennett — but until these men, until Alex Karaban put on the uniform and Samson (tearing up) — the players change your life when you have such special people.”
The humility of Hurley appears by stating that he owes his job security to players on his team, not just his own smarts or efforts. This fact brought him to tears. The truth of life is that we don’t only depend on others for help but that without them we are not the person we are supposed to be. God places people in our lives for a very specific reason. Even in sports, His providence reigns.
Finally, Coach Hurley spoke about how different his offseason will be from the last two. “I would say going into the year, there’s a lot of rewiring and things I’ve got to do in the offseason because you just get caught up in this tidal wave of success that we’ve had,” Hurley said. “You lose perspective. You struggle with the ego at times because you’ve been on this incredible run.”
He said that he was looking forward to a normal offseason where he could focus on bettering himself as a man and a coach.
His insight about ego is particularly timely for Catholics during the season of Lent. While he is a famous sports coach who makes headlines and is on the front page – we live quiet lives. However, our ego still gets in the way. When we look down at others that we think we are better than. When we commit the same sin, over and over again, because we know better. When we place our desires in front of sacrificing for God and others – these are all moments when we lose perspective.
No matter how our bracket, or our team, is doing this March – may we learn from the emotion of a coach who admitted that he lost perspective and be inspired to put our ego down so that Christ can reign victorious over every aspect of our lives.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine. He is the author of Let Us Begin: Saint Francis’s Way of Becoming Like Christ and Renewing the World.
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