Tara Sullivan

Sports Columnist, @Record_Tara

What is it they taught us when we were kids? Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst?

Bob Hurley is hoping yet again for the best, but more than he ever has in 50 years coaching basketball at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, Hurley is preparing for the worst.

Such are the financial dire straits ensnaring the small Catholic school that sits in the shadow of New York City, a complicated web of issues that pose the strongest threat yet that the end of the current school year will also mark the end of the school’s existence. It is a scenario unthinkable to a basketball community so accustomed to watching Hurley stalk the sidelines in his incomparable, winning way. But this is the truth: If Hurley can’t buy more time in a meeting Wednesday with Archdiocese officials, an April 5 deadline to meet budget and enrollment shortfalls will all but certainly close the school, bringing the end not only to a fine academic institution that boasts a 100 percent college acceptance rate for graduating seniors, but the end of one of the most dominant, successful boys basketball teams this state, nay, this country, has ever seen.

“We were thinking about it last night, and God knows whether we can do this or not, but in there in the story, we should thank those who have kept this thing going as long as it has,” Hurley is saying from his Jersey City home, his wife, Chris, nearby, their granddaughter spending a sick day home with them as well. “You have to look back, in order to be a story that’s truly told properly, you have to look at the fact that this has been going on for decades. We had our first big fundraiser in 1989.”

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From that initial event at the Madison Hotel to the countless golf outings, celebrity roasts and fundraising dinners held across the last three decades, St. Anthony has managed to stay just above water. But it could never manage to clear the rough waves, living a year-to-year existence on the sheer strength of Hurley’s work, putting every cent of every check toward operating costs.

“They are all good events,” Hurley insists. “But you’re hitting your same donor base. We have never been able to expand the donor base. It’s hard to get someone who doesn’t connect with you on a personal level.”

But boy, has he tried.

As the architect of 28 state basketball championships, as a three-time USA Today national coach of the year, as a 2010 inductee into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, as the omnipresent force of personality known on the streets of Jersey City as a probation officer and in the gym as a taskmaster, Hurley has done everything he can to keep the school open. He’s given back his paychecks. He’s taken over as president. He’s spoken at every corporate event and donated every penny. He’s sat with 60 Minutes and CBS News, allowed Showtime to chronicle his every step, talked to local sports talk radio bigwigs and taken every newspaper and website phone call directed his way.

He’s enlisted his family, including his wife, Chris, by his side for every game and every fundraiser. Including his two sons, current Division I coaches Bobby (Arizona State) and Danny (Rhode Island), who talk reverently and appreciatively of what it meant to learn at their father’s knee, who paid him the highest compliment they could by walking in his basketball footsteps. Including his daughter Melissa (a special education teacher in Jersey City), who organized a GoFundMe page for St. Anthony. He’s gotten support from players you’ve no doubt heard of (NBA alums Terry Dehere, Jerry Walker, David Rivers) and even more from countless alums without a famous name.

And still, he is facing the same fate that has already befallen so many inner-city Catholic schools, an intersection of declining enrollment, a burgeoning charter school system and shifting demographics. St. Anthony fights to keep an average of 50 boys and girls per grade, despite being a most affordable private school option. Even with a proposed $500 tuition increase to $6,650, it still costs upwards of $14,000 to educate each student. St. Anthony has always made up the difference, as opposed to some of its athletic/academic counterparts in other parts of the state, places like Don Bosco and Bergen Catholic, which can charge upwards of $17,000 in tuition.

“Where we are is understandable to me, because I’ve been around the numbers for the last three years as president,” Hurley says. “It’s a deficit, on a yearly basis, of a million and a half each year. We’ve tried all different things. But this is where we are. There’s no more ideas. No more things to come up with. We’re moving toward April 5.

“For all the publicity, I want to be able to thank everyone who has been of such help for so long. And the second thing I want to tell them is that it’s nobody’s fault if it doesn’t continue.”

The hitch in his voice is unmistakable. This is hard, hard for the entire family, for the entire community, for everyone who’s been touched by what’s gone on inside those walls, who has seen firsthand the real-life results behind the motto “the street stops here.”

“I am just so emotional about this,” Chris says over the phone. “It’s just gotten to be so hard. I’ve never been around Bob when he’s not coaching St. Anthony. Bob has had this for 50 years, that’s a long time, to be doing something you were so passionate about, something you were great at. Some people never get that.”

So here they find themselves, discussing both possible scenarios, how they can recruit students and prepare staff if they do get a reprieve, how they can find homes for the 28 state championship trophies if they don’t, how they can plan and celebrate a potential farewell tour if they do stay open, how they can open the gym three nights a week so current players can try out for other teams if they don’t, how they can prepare student schedules for a year from now or offer assistance for school transfers a few months from now.

“If it’s the reality of closing, then for the rest of the year we have to plan for that, not exactly grief counseling, but talking to groups of kids at a time, helping them transition, helping these families,” Hurley says.

He sighs, sounding more resigned than at any time I’ve spoken to him in 25 years doing this job.

“I feel bad that I can’t continue to keep people employed,” he says. “I feel personally responsible. I have no ideas. Anything that could be done has been done. We thank everyone. We’re proud of the product.”