{"id":556912,"date":"2026-03-31T21:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T21:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/556912\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T21:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T21:35:08","slug":"dan-hurleys-head-butt-showed-black-coaches-arent-given-the-same-grace-as-white-coaches-ncaa-tournament-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/556912\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Hurley\u2019s \u2018head-butt\u2019 showed Black coaches aren\u2019t given the same grace as white coaches | NCAA Tournament 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UConn-Duke game on Sunday night<\/a> was one for the ages. A last-second game winner from freshman Braylon Mullins took down the top-seeded Blue Devils, who at one point had led by 19 points. It is a moment that will be replayed over and over for years to come.<\/p>\n

Etan Thomas<\/a><\/p>\n

However, something strange happened after Mullins\u2019s shot. UConn\u2019s head coach Dan Hurley approached referee Roger Ayers and touched foreheads with the official<\/a> while glaring into his eyes. It wasn\u2019t quite the \u201chead-butt\u201d some called it on social media but it was an eye-catching scene. For his part, Ayers told ESPN<\/a> the incident was \u201cabsolutely nothing\u201d but it wouldn\u2019t have been unusual for Hurley to be given a technical foul, which would have given Duke free throws and a chance to win the game with 0.4 seconds left. Hurley mystifyingly has said<\/a> he thought Ayers was trying to \u201cchest bump me to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t Hurley\u2019s first brush with controversy. Earlier this month, he was fined<\/a> for \u201cunsportsmanlike conduct\u201d after confronting an official at a game against Marquette. In 2025, he taunted Creighton fans<\/a> after a UConn victory. Later that season, after UConn were beaten by Florida in the NCAA Tournament, he approached Baylor players as they prepared for their game and told them<\/a>: \u201cI hope [the referees] don\u2019t [expletive] you like they effed us\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hurley is largely forgiven for all this. He is called \u201cpassionate\u201d, \u201ceccentric\u201d or \u201cfiery\u201d.<\/p>\n

Which leaves some coaches wondering if things would have been different if they behaved in a similar manner to Hurley. I posted video of the Hurley-Ayers incident on my Instagram account and Tennessee State head coach Nolan Smith, who is Black, replied in the comments: \u201cI\u2019ll never try this. I\u2019ll be coaching in Pelican Bay.\u201d <\/p>\n

Smith was joking, but he is 100% correct. Make no mistake, a Black coach wouldn\u2019t be able to get away with any of that. They\u2019d be accused of being unable to control their emotions or of being a corrupting influence on their players. Maybe they\u2019d just be handcuffed and led off court. That\u2019s exactly what happened<\/a> to Tuskegee coach Benjy Taylor \u2013 and he was trying to calm a situation down.<\/p>\n

There are other examples out there. Rick Pitino is a brilliant coach but his career would have been sunk long ago if he was Black. The most prominent of his missteps came from his time at Louisville where his former assistant coach, Andre McGee, was accused of paying for escorts to strip and have sex with players and recruits. McGee was put on probation by the NCAA and his appeal failed. Pitino was never accused of being involved in the scheme but the NCAA admonished him<\/a> for \u201cfailing in his responsibility to monitor the activities of [McGee]\u201d. Louisville subsequently fired him but rather than ending his career he is now coaching another prominent program, St John\u2019s. A Black coach in that situation? He never would have coached a major team again.<\/p>\n

The reason is that the rules are different for Black people in every aspect of society. And that goes all the way to the top.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama had to be perfect to become president of the United States: an Ivy League eduction at Columbia and Harvard, where he became the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review. One wife, two daughters with that same wife, and zero scandals.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump, on the other hand, was found guilty of all 34 counts<\/a> of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. But wait, there\u2019s more. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable<\/a> for sexually abusing E Jean Carroll in a New York department store dressing room in the 1990s. In fact, more than 20 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct<\/a>, all of which he has denied.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a list that would have kept a Black person from even being considered as president of McDonald\u2019s, let alone president of the United States \u2013 and that\u2019s before we even get to the stain of Trump\u2019s one-time friendship with Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>. The fallout for Trump? He\u2019s been elected president twice.<\/p>\n

Black people know this because we learn how America works from a very young age. The rules are just different for us.<\/p>\n

Dylann Roof killed nine people during his shooting spree at a Black church in 2015, and the police bought him a Burger King<\/a>. Meanwhile, they choked Eric Garner to death<\/a> for suspicion of selling loose cigarettes, and kneeled on the neck of George Floyd<\/a> until he died for allegedly using a counterfeit bill.<\/p>\n

Of course it\u2019s not fair, and of course it\u2019s not how it should be, but it is just the way it is. White privilege exists in every aspect of American society, and that includes college basketball.<\/p>\n

Etan Thomas played in the NBA from 2000 through 2011. He is a published author, podcaster, poet, activist and motivational speaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UConn-Duke game on Sunday night was one for the ages. A last-second game winner from freshman Braylon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99],"class_list":{"0":"post-556912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}