Famed basketball coach visits Our Lady's Bower

FAMED US High School basketball coach Bob Hurley made a special visit to Athlone last Thursday, to present a one-off coaching seminar. Hurley, a guest of local coach Paddy Mullally and the Our Lady's Bower basketball team, the Bower Buzzers, is renowned for his work as basketball coach at St Anthony High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. Hurley - recently inducted into the US Basketball Hall of Fame - has amassed 23 state championships and more than 900 wins in 35 years as a coach, creating a national powerhouse, despite substandard facilities and financial limitations. His work at St Anthony High School has already been documented in a best selling book 'The Miracle of St Anthony', and a documentary/movie called 'The Street Stops Here' also highlighted Hurley's coaching achievements. Hurley has consistently ignored attempts by numerous high-profile college teams and NBA sides to remain at St Anthony's. Speaking about Hurley's visit to Athlone, Paddy Mullally said it was a major coup for the Bower Buzzers. Numerous basketball coaches from the Midlands region also attended last Thursday, while the Mayor of Athlone, Mark Cooney, was also there. "Bob Hurley is an absolute phenomenon in the US and I met him through a friend, Sean Reilly, while over there," said Mullally. "Bob was delighted to come over here and he put on a tremendously educational sessions," he added. Five of Hurley's teams have gone undefeated throughout the year, including his 2007-08 team. On April 5, 2010, he was announced as the only coach to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame and only the third high-school coach in history to be so honoured. Hurley is the father of Bobby Hurley, a former All-American point guard at Duke, and Danny Hurley, who was hired in April 2010 to coach Wagner College after years of coaching at Newark's St Benedict's Preparatory School, also one of the top high school programmes in America. Hurley's undefeated 1989 team, which featured Jerry Walker, Hurley's son Bobby, Terry Dehere, and Rodrick Rhodes, was ranked first in the nation by USA Today, and three of the players on that team - Bobby Hurley, Dehere and Rhodes - were first round draft choices in the NBA draft. That team won New Jersey's first Tournament of Champions and amassed 50 straight victories in a two-year span. Hurley's 2007-08 squad was also undefeated, finishing with 32 wins and no losses, and ranked number one in the US, even though no starter was taller that 6'6. The '08 team, with six seniors accepting Division I basketball scholarships, also won Hurley's tenth Tournament of Champions, winning its state tournament games by an average of more than 27 points per game. The team also won St Anthony's 25th state championship, more than any other school in US history. Hurley has been the coach for 23 of those teams and an assistant coach for the other two. His team's are widely known for their speed, defensive intensity, and precise ball movement. He is known for his intense calls from the sideline to players during stoppages in play