A Decade Ago, Nate Oats Coached High Schoolers. Now he’s in the Final Four.
And he has the coach on the opposite bench to thank.
Tomorrow, Nate Oats will coach Alabama in its first ever Final Four appearance.
Just ten years ago, Oats was coaching a Detroit-area high school basketball team.
He taught math on the side.
"If I had a full-time job as a Division III head coach, I would have been really happy," Oats told CBS Sports this week. "I wanted to coach basketball as a full-time job. Never thought I'd be able to get into Division I."
Not only has he climbed to the peak of his profession in only a decade, but when Oats looks around at the summit, he’s going to see a familiar face there to greet him. Dan Hurley, UCONN’s coach, has been there since the very beginning.
You see, the Hurley’s are a basketball family, too—with a special soft spot for the high school game. Dan’s father, Bobby Sr., was a legend at St. Anthony High School in New Jersey. For 45 years, he led high school teams and amassed 26 state titles. In many ways, he lived the type of life to which Oats quietly aspired. When Bobby’s sons, Dan and Bobby, Jr., grew up, they starred for their father’s teams. Both played in college; Bobby, Jr. won back-to-back National titles as Duke’s point guard before a six-year NBA career. He’s still the NCAA’s all-time assist leader—a skill that will come in handy later in our story.
Naturally, both Dan and Bobby followed in their father’s footsteps. Dan started in high school, as his father’s assistant, before taking over his own team and, eventually, making the leap to lead Wagner, a small Division I program on Staten Island. He hired his brother Bobby to be his lead assistant.
While the Hurley brothers cut their teeth in the low levels of college ball, Oats slowly built Romulus High School into a Michigan powerhouse. When he took the job, the basketball team’s budget totaled $78 (not a typo!). Hurley used his Sam’s Club membership to buy snack food in bulk that he then re-sold to students in a black-market shop out of his math classroom, undercutting the cafeteria. It was, Oats said, “frowned upon by some of the principals.”
In his classroom, when he wasn’t selling Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Hurley was putting his skills as a math teacher to use. Long before Steph Curry transformed the NBA into a three-point shooting bonanza, Oats poured over analytics that revealed to him that his team should pursue the three. "He's got the recipe for success," Romulus teacher Jennifer Lock said. "He had it here. He's very math-minded, which I think lends itself to all the metrics that he loves. I think that background has been super helpful as a coach.” With his snack money, Oats was able to buy the team six shooting machines. He won State.
The Hurley’s, meanwhile, moved up, and Dan took the job as Rhode Island’s head coach. Bobby came with him. It was there that the Hurley’s one day wandered into the gym at Romulus. They were there to recruit a young guard on Oats’ team named E.C. Matthews. During the recruiting process, Dan and Bobby grew close to Oats.
In 2013, Bobby earned his own head coaching job at Buffalo. He called Oats. He wanted him to be his assistant. Like that, Oats was on his way.
"It's crazy how things come full circle in life sometimes," Bobby, who is now the head coach at Arizona State, said. "As Dan was building the Rhode Island program, Nate was a very successful high school coach in Detroit. Somehow, all our lives came together in that moment. You fast forward a bunch of years and here they are going head-to-head in the Final Four."
Says Oats: "If I didn't take the Romulus job, I never would have met Danny Hurley or Bobby Hurley...I wouldn't be where I'm at right now if I didn't take that job."
So here’s to the Final Four, and two high school coaches whose stories epitomize the tournament better than any other. There’s the juggernaut—the son of a legend—against a true underdog, someone who had to scrape together and discover a unique advantage. They’ve both made it to the big time. May the best coach win.
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“I’m pretty competitive. I think a lot of people, especially coaches, think they’re competitive. I don’t think anybody realizes how competitive the Hurleys are.”
– Nate Oats
This is amazing!!
When he took the job, the basketball team’s budget totaled $78 (not a typo!). Hurley used his Sam’s Club membership to buy snack food in bulk that he then re-sold to students in a black-market shop out of his math classroom, undercutting the cafeteria. It was, Oats said, “frowned upon by some of the principals.