{"id":591357,"date":"2026-04-07T13:58:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591357\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:58:18","slug":"unbearable-anxiety-dan-hurley-opens-up-about-the-panic-attacks-that-nearly-broke-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591357\/","title":{"rendered":"“Unbearable anxiety” – Dan Hurley opens up about the panic attacks that nearly broke him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panic attacks are surprisingly common. Studies suggest<\/a> that over 28 percent of adults have experienced at least one panic attack in their lifetime.<\/p>\n

You’ve managed to stay out of that group? That’s certainly big luck. After all, panic attacks, by all accounts, are something you wouldn’t wish on your own worst enemy. Experiencing one feels awful. One person who can attest to that is the accomplished college head coach Dan Hurley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hurley himself has experienced panic attacks. The UConn Huskies’ head coach talked about that in September 2024 during a candid interview. Sitting down with Graham Bensinger, he described the mix of “unbearable anxiety” and “unbearable nervousness about what’s about to transpire” that has flooded him before some games.<\/p>\n

More than just game day nerves<\/p>\n

Hurley doesn’t need a medical journal to explain what a panic attack feels like. He’s been there in the tunnel before tip\u2011off. His stomach twists so badly that he makes repeated trips to the bathroom, wondering how his body can even take it.<\/p>\n

“You’d think it’s impossible to go to the bathroom that many times,” he said<\/a> in the Bensinger interview.<\/p>\n

In that moment, Hurley isn’t just afraid of losing. He’s afraid of his own mind. The back-to-back NCAA champion\u2011winning head coach said this shows up when sudden, runaway thoughts flood in. For instance, he suddenly pictures every Huskies<\/a> player playing their worst. At the same time, he sees every opponent at their best. Sure, those thoughts aren’t rational. Still, they’re there. And interacting with them only makes it worse.<\/p>\n

The next layer is the chessboard in Hurley’s head. The complex defenses. The layered offenses. The substitutions. The in\u2011the\u2011moment adjustments. The mental state of the players who are melting down.<\/p>\n

“The things that are going on in a game are so complex,” he said. “I know things too well, and that’s caused me a lot of issues.”<\/p>\n

Anxiety isn’t weakness for Hurley<\/p>\n

For years, it somehow worked for him. Hurley emphasized that every game and every victory made things “a lot easier.” Every NCAA championship made him feel “a lot more calm.”<\/p>\n

Still, it wasn’t the end of it.<\/p>\n

The 2024 Naismith Coach of the Year told Bensinger that he had panic attacks serious enough to land him in the hospital. In his high school coaching years, especially, everything became too much at once. Hurley was dealing with young players, a young marriage, and the reality of being fired by Rutgers. Money was tight. The pressure was everywhere. He carried the constant fear of “just not succeeding” and not being able to provide or achieve anything worth being proud of.<\/p>\n

When that pressure builds, and everything feels like too much, he said it can feel like you’re having a heart attack. Except it isn’t. It’s a panic attack.<\/p>\n

Hurley told the story of two recent episodes.<\/p>\n

One of them hit when he rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange the year before. By his account, the season had already worn him down. Mentally and physically. Then came the championship, the rush of euphoria, the exhaustion, and the whirlwind of appearances. He felt disconnected from his team, cut off from his routine, and overwhelmed by the noise.<\/p>\n

To handle it all, the 53\u2011year\u2011old New Jersey native eventually learned to lean on two things.<\/p>\n

First, the practical stuff.<\/p>\n

He keeps his superstitions, his holy water, his M&M’s, the rituals and the routines that feel like armor.<\/p>\n

Second, he leans into deeper work.<\/p>\n

Hurley goes to therapy, he keeps his faith, and he talks about it openly. He has said<\/a>, for instance, that being honest about anxiety and depression doesn’t show weakness. It shows strength. And when you hear him talk about it, that’s really the only way to see it.<\/p>\n

Related: “It\u2019s a mess” – Why Tom Izzo told Dan Hurley to turn down the Lakers’ $70M offer<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Apr 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panic attacks are surprisingly common. Studies suggest that over 28 percent of adults have experienced at least one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,288359,288797,137,514,515,10237],"class_list":{"0":"post-591357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-dan-hurley","11":"tag-graham-bensinger","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-panic-attacks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}