WHEN UCONN THREATENS TO “RUIN” A REPORTER’S LIFE, DAN HURLEY NEEDS HELP
A Charlotte TV journalist had every right to post the coach’s profane rant about officials Sunday, and when the director of communications threatened him, he should have been dismissed by the school
Dump the bogus regrets. It’s not about repenting a twisted moment when Bobby Mullen, the University of Connecticut’s communications director, threatened to “ruin” a reporter’s life last weekend. A forward-facing official of a flagship public institution shouldn’t make such haunting remarks without losing his job.
But Mullen remains employed, after another vicious shot in a besieged country that wants to bury good reporters without thinking.
True, so true, Mullen said he would torture Joey Ellis — representing a Charlotte TV station — after he posted a video of coach Dan Hurley ripping officials after a 77-75 loss in Raleigh. Considering the Sunday tirade happened in a walkway at Lenovo Center, where Ellis and other reporters watched teams leave the court, UConn had no right to balk about viral exposure in the NCAA basketball tournament. Hurley was assailed — including here — for not losing well after winning national championships the last two years. All season, Hurley was a madman.
This was his final compilation.
“I hope they don't f— you like they f—ed us. I hope they don't do that to you, Baylor,” he said as Florida progressed to the next round.
Mullen warned Ellis not to post the scene. “I’ll ruin your f—ing life,” he said. Ellis ran it anyway. How often have I been threatened? Sports owners have come after my position as a columnist and a talk-show host. An editor-in-chief blasted me with a forearm shiver. An NFL head coach barreled me after a game. The publicist of the Chicago White Sox ripped me apart in game notes. Once, a fuddy-duddy with the Bears was surly. But ruin a life? Ellis should have called a lawyer and asked about Mullen, who claimed he was “in an area he should not have been in” and didn’t protect “the lasting image of coach Hurley, leaving the court arm-in-arm with his seniors.”
The WHAT?
Instead, Ellis called Mullen. “I accepted it … and life rolls on,” he wrote of an apology on X, where he served the reporter’s role rather than make six figures from the school.
At some point, a university should apply punishment when it makes money from a major tournament. Mullen should not represent Hurley next season, but he had paramount help from a coach who makes $50 million at the school. Hurley wrote a book, “Never Stop,” with author Ian O’Connor. Shouldn’t he have more respect for the media profession?
“Bobby regrets, just like I regret the moments I’ve had. Obviously, it’s all my fault that Bobby got pulled into it,” Hurley said Wednesday. “I set the whole thing in motion and I feel horrible. Obviously, he could have handled dealing with the media person with the phone that took the video (differently); he could have obviously let it go. He should have been better trained for a situation like this. We’ve been in them all year. But Bobby’s a soldier. We all fight like that for each other in our program, and sometimes we go a little too far. But Bobby’s a great guy.”
A little too far? Ruining a life is insanity. “This is what UConn knew they were getting, this is how I’ve coached obviously my entire career — and I’m not bragging about that, I’m just surprised that people just discovered it if they’re college basketball experts,” Hurley said with his typical attitude. “It’s one of those things where, they’re mistakes, there are things I wish I didn’t do, it’s part of what you get with me. I hope to not do it again. I’m going to attempt to take measures both internally, mentally and externally. I wouldn’t change one aspect of how I coach a game or how hard we fight. I’d like to get on and off the court without incident.”
Then, stop the incidents. Right? Hurley is wrong when he thinks an arena corridor is off limits from media. “Past the tunnel, by the locker rooms, in the hallway where the coaches go, that’s for the combatants, that’s for the competitors. That’s not for camera phones. Just relative to that, those were three great refs and Florida earned it,” he said. “If I don’t go off the rails at the end there, after that three-year run ended in excruciating fashion … if I don’t have that emotional outburst there, probably all people are talking about is the run we’ve had, the amazing players.”
They aren’t. People are talking about the head coach, who hasn’t even pondered an apology to Ellis. Who will Hurley badger next? And what will the communications director do?
Slug the reporter? Run over him with the team bus? UConn also will con the next guy.
Shame on the program, the school, the state. Ruin this, dolts.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.