Agreed. These kind of thoughts are not new for him. He had exactly the same thought in college, and acted on it ("In Dan Hurley’s junior year, the pressure he put on himself became unbearable, and he stepped away after just two games that season amid struggles on and off the court. “I was done,” Hurley said in 2015,
according to the Providence Journal. “I was defeated. I hated basketball … I had come to hate the game.”" -
Dan Hurley haunted by his disappointing Seton Hall past). What did he take away from that experience? “I’m still haunted by my playing career in a lot of ways, just how disappointed I am to this day in terms of how that went for me at Seton Hall,” Hurley said. “So I do feel this enormous pressure in coaching to kind of make up for that."
Big time college athletics is extremely demanding, and many athletes must ask themselves if it's worth it. Hurley lets them know he knows what they're thinking and empathizes.
And if those kind of thoughts come to him today, after a grueling and disappointing season, what's his conclusion going to be? The title of his book is the answer: "Never Stop: Life, Leadership, and What It Takes to Be Great". He wants to be great and the lesson he's learned is the way there is to never stop, to work through the doubts and keep going.
He's not quitting. He's being himself, knowing that openness about the reality and legitimacy of doubts gives credibility to his teaching and is good for his players and for his teams.