Review: 'The Street Stops Here' -- Worth Watching, and Hard to Watch

Top college basketball coaches are celebrities in America. They are a constant presence on television and the internet, their coaching decisions and job status endlessly debated, their salaries and endorsement deals worth millions.

As another year’s Madness marches along, it would be interesting to compare name recognition of these coaches with that of national political leaders. After the President, who else currently holding office has the name (and face) recognition of people like Rick Pitino, Bobby Knight, or Coach K?

Inhabiting the same universe, somehow, are high school basketball coaches. All that’s missing are the crowds, the money, the fame… everything, almost, except the game itself. And the boys and girls who play it, a few of whom will soon be doing the heavy lifting for those famous college coaches.

Bob Hurley of St. Anthony’s in New Jersey is among the nation’s most famous high school coaches.  Yet unless you’re a hard-core hoops fan, you’ve never heard of him. On the Wednesday of Final Four week, PBS is airing a well-made documentary, The Street Stops Here, which captures a few weeks in one of his seasons.

Hurley was a probation officer in Jersey City, a poverty- and crime-traumatized community just across the river from New York City. By the time he encountered men in the criminal justice system, he realized, it was too late for many of them to redirect their lives. So he decided to get involved in working with kids, while there was still time. Basketball was his way in.

After coaching for almost 40 years (during most of which he also worked as a probation officer), he’s among the most successful coaches, winning state championship after championship, with his teams often ranked among the best in the country. His players commute to the school, many for long distances, from all over the New York City area.

And yet, as the film shows, it’s still a hardscrabble life for Hurley and his school. St. Anthony’s is a chronically struggling Catholic school, keeping tuition down around half of the average cost of educating each student, and seeking to raise the rest of the funds needed, somehow. A subplot of the film is the school’s increasingly desperate effort to raise the funds to keep its doors open as the economy craters.
In fact, every dimension of Hurley’s life at the school is tough.  His players are elite athletes, but come from a world of chaos and deprivation. Few have fathers present in their lives, and Hurley assumes that role for many.

Hurley acting as a father figure is, mostly, hard to watch… because it’s almost all tough love, with a lot more of the ‘tough’ visible than the ‘love.’ Even if you know there’s love behind it, it is painful to watch an authority figure constantly, profanely, berate men who are, actually, children.

The children in question are huge and strong, but their veneer of street hardness frequently cracks, revealing (at times) raw terror of their coach. The filmmakers pull no punches, and the viewer wonders, does he really have to be that hard on them? After a preview screening, Hurley said, “I’m not like that all the time. I couldn’t be… that’s not me.”  Then, of his depiction in the film, he said, “I don’t even like myself.”  

Yet Hurley sincerely believes he has to do it this way. “I think the thing that makes it work is I’m a huge pain in the ___.” For kids whose survival is so tenuous, he believes the adult authority figure in their lives cannot be a friend. The friendship comes after he gets them a college scholarship -- the farther from Jersey City the better -- and they begin to succeed as men.

Many do. The film features testimonials from former St. Anthony’s players. In 38 years of coaching, Hurley has only had two players who haven’t gone on to college. Take a moment to reflect on that -- it would be remarkable at any school, anywhere.

Two of the many who did go on to college, by the way, were his sons. Danny played at Seton Hall and has followed in his father’s footsteps as a scary high school coach, and Bobby became a superstar at Duke after (apparently) getting the worst treatment his father could dish out as his coach.

The basketball drama in the film draws you in:  the team hasn’t won the state title in 3 years – will these seniors be the first class never to win it? Even more absorbing is the question of whether Hurley’s scorched-earth approach is really needed, or even right.

What finally makes the strongest impression, however, is not the uniqueness of Bob Hurley the coach, or the obstacles he and his kids are overcoming. It’s the knowledge that he’s just one of many who are launching children toward a good life, over a myriad of obstacles. He’s one of thousands who pour out their lives in this way, most of them even less recognized than he is.

For Hurley, the real motivation isn’t love of the game. As for so many others, it’s love of the kids.

The Street Stops Here airs Wednesday, March 31, at 10pm EDT on PBS (local broadcast times vary).