There are many great things about crowdsourced encyclopedia Wikipedia, but it is not always reliable as a source for breaking news.
And that’s true in sports as well. The latest case there comes around discussion of the Los Angeles Lakers making a long-term contract offer to UConn men’s basketball head coach Dan Hurley Thursday, which led to the edit that Hurley “was” the Huskies’ head coach:
Lakers want Dan Hurley to be their next head coach.
His Wikipedia page immediately got a weird edit: pic.twitter.com/EUAwmKLi2y
— LeKaren James (@TREErenceMalick) June 6, 2024
“Daniel S. Hurley (born January 16, 1973) was an American college basketball coach who was the head coach of the UConn Huskies men’s team at the University of Connecticut.” Yeah, that certainly suggests he isn’t there any longer!
However, Hurley conducted a Huskies’ practice as usual Thursday despite these reports. And there, he reportedly told players he hadn’t made a decision yet, as per John Fanta of Fox and The Field of 68:
Dan Hurley met with his players at UConn this morning and informed them he’s been in talks with the Lakers, a source tells Fox Sports. Hurley didn’t want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it’s business as usual for now.
— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) June 6, 2024
In a column for FoxSports.com, Fanta also noted that UConn has an offer “on the table” for Hurley that would make him one of the highest-paid coaches in all of college basketball. And he wrote that Hurley seems far from decided right now:
A source tells FOX Sports that Hurley is ‘truly at a 50-50’ in weighing his decision whether to make the leap up for LeBron James and the Lakers or stay in the college game and try to achieve something unthinkable in the modern era.
“He deals with things mentally where he’s constantly seeking to prove what he can do,” a source told FOX Sports.
As for Hurley’s current position, a source tells FOX Sports that the University of Connecticut has offered the coach a lucrative new contract that would make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the country, featuring significant widespread benefits for him. Hurley said Wednesday that “It’s complicated, and it’s taken more time (to get a deal done) than any of us would have liked. It’s not something that’s been a rush for me. You sacrifice a lot to do this job. The job beats your ass pretty good, and a lot suffers with your family. Any chance at a social life, it consumes everything you have.”
Perhaps reflecting that, Hurley’s Wikipedia page has since changed back (as of 3:30 p.m. ET) to read, “is the head coach of the UConn Huskies men’s basketball.” But we’ll see if that initial premature edit proves right and how that fits into the long history of odd sports Wikipedia edits.
[TREErence Malick on X/Twitter, FoxSports.com]
