December 1, 2024
His family’s basement consists of Dean E. Smith Center coasters, showing the crisp contrasts between the Carolina blue seats and golden-brown court. Sean Hurley’s dad, Richard, proudly shows off his University of North Carolina 1981-1982 NCAA Basketball Championship Coca Cola bottle and explains that Sean will be the only one to ever break the seal and take a sip. Why, you may ask?
Sean has been a Tar Heel fan since he was a baby. He didn’t have much of a choice as his dad spread his love of the University of North Carolina to him as a child, putting Sean in UNC threads and watching numerous games with him for roughly 16 years.
Making sure that Sean was a Tar Heel fan wasn’t necessarily difficult, especially with the flashy uniforms and success that the historic sports programs have had at UNC. However, the back brace, though clear and lightweight, wrapped tightly around his tall frame as a constant reminder that UNC could be too far out of reach.
The summer of eighth grade turned the young baseball prospect’s life upside down.
“When I swung the bat, I heard and felt a pop in my back and I instantly knew something was wrong,” said Sean.
Many young children and teenagers, especially boys, have been taught to be tough and play through injury. Even with his gut feeling, the swing felt normal to Sean, and he believed that his technique couldn’t have caused a severe injury. So, he continued to play and pitched during this game.
Nothing could have prepared him for how this routine swing would alter his track to playing college baseball, or any baseball after the summer of eighth grade.
“I was shocked to hear the doctor say that I would be out for a while because I’ve never had a big injury like that,” Sean said.
The combination of growth spurts and the start of weight training led to this incident. Frustration settled in as the UNC-loving toddler in the back of Sean’s mind resurfaced as the uncertainty of his life unfolded in a flash.
“The days at the doctor’s appointments and physical therapy were really making me angry because it seemed like no matter what they told me to do, nothing was making my back feel any better,” said Sean.
Sean experienced zero improvement for a full year. He was stuck watching his teammates compete as he tried to remain hopeful that he would eventually play alongside them again. He continued to support his teammates by going to games and streaming them when he did not travel with the team. In practice, he remained an active member of the team and willingly provided his teammates with suggestions to better themselves and increase the team’s success overall.
It wasn’t easy for Sean to swallow the possibility of never playing again, but it was arguably even more challenging for his family to watch all his hard work slowly inch closer and closer to the drain of doom.
“Just knowing that it was eating at him not being able to compete and perform was tough for Danielle and I,” said Richard Hurley. “But we just did our best to support him and say, ‘Hey we are going to get through this.’”
As Sean anxiously waited for some sliver of improvement, his parents decided to go to another doctor and explore a different medical route. This doctor conducted blood tests to see if Sean’s stubborn back issue was due to an autoimmune deficiency. After the tests came back, his doctor prescribed him three supplements to take every day.
This may seem like no big deal. Set a reminder on your phone and take the supplements. But there was much more. Cut out all sugar and wheat. This diet was a challenge for Sean. What kid would want to track their diet at the age of 14? The awkwardness at the dinner table surged as his family felt guilty eating the food he once enjoyed in front of him.
With the tension of this diet leaving a bad taste in the Hurley family’s mouth, they were still unsatisfied. It was another failed attempt. Sean wasn’t 100%. He only felt a little better. This slight progress didn’t satisfy him. He wanted to feel normal.
The solution came after months of struggle and discomfort, but the solution also brought struggle and discomfort. He not only worried about being healthy enough to compete at the next level, but he also felt embarrassed and defeated.
“Those three months were awful because I didn’t want anyone to know that I was wearing a brace,” said Sean.
He’s grateful that his parents took him to see a doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital because wearing the three-strapped brace around his stomach every waking moment was his ticket to normalcy.
As Sean went through the tribulations of his 20 month-long injury, he never lost sight of what was important to him: his dream.
“It kind of makes you view life through a different lens because you got to try to take the positive out of it,” Sean said. “I used that time to learn more about my body and learn more about pitching in general.”
He focused on working on his game from the sideline. As he watched pitchers in college and the MLB perform, he took notes and planned to add effective strategies to his game.
With a lot of dedication from himself and his family to get him the care and practice opportunities he needed, Sean returned like he wasn’t jammed inside doctors’ offices instead of being out on the mound for over a year and a half. His first start at pitcher required a 40-pitch limit. As he continued to show signs of improvement, and more importantly no signs of his fever dream injury, his pitch limit was stretched to 60 and then 80, until he was fully cleared after three starts.
Sean hit the ground running in his recruitment process and never looked back. Coaches swarmed this summer to places like Alabama and Georgia to try to find the next set of golden gems to help set them up for a shot at the national championship. As Sean traveled to show off his skills at these combines, he was one of the players coaches traveled to see, especially after his first trip to Alabama.
Sean’s traveling wasn’t over yet. He headed over to UNC camp. On August 1, at lunch with his family, Sean got the call.
The UNC coaches were finally able to interact this summer with Sean, which was a much different experience than Sean previously had with them in September of his freshman year. Sean visited that September, but coaches weren’t allowed to interact with him because of the rule change that coaches couldn’t speak to any future 2026 graduates. Sean and his dad watched a scrimmage and more practice, as Sean patiently waited for his turn in the Tar Heel spotlight.
Richard Hurley said, “We stood right next to the head coach for three hours and we just kept saying ‘I wonder if coach is even going to say hello.’”
UNC’s coaching staff did not know Sean yet and they never looked his way as he stood at the field. However, Sean and Mr. Hurley look back at the memory fondly, even though Sean missed the opportunity due to his injury to play in front of UNC coaches back in eighth grade.
“We did tell him that story,” said Richard Hurley. “We said, ‘You know coach, we were wondering if you were going to speak to him this time because two years ago you didn’t.’”
Coaches are only allowed to offer players the opportunity to play at their universities when the players are off campus. That’s exactly what happened. Who would have thought that an ordinary lunch would turn into a historic memory for the Hurley family.
Sean’s mom, Danielle, sat anxiously on the curb outside the restaurant as she watched her son answer one of the most important calls of his life. Sean was offered a full ride to UNC to play baseball and gratefully accepted it. Taxing physical therapy sessions and numerous visits to doctors were all worth it. Sean can focus on being a high schooler again, without the fear of not being accepted by his top school, a luxury that many students don’t experience.
“He was offered a bunch of scholarships during this process, but he wanted to go through this process and take visits,” Richard Hurley said. “But once Carolina offered that was a moment, I was super excited about for him because we had talked about that moment when he was a kid and to see it happen and watch it come to reality, I’m just happy for him.”
“With the injury I was doubting a lot of things, and I wasn’t sure when I was going to be able to come back, so it relieved a lot of pressure there,” said Sean. “Next year, I’m just going to be able to go out there and play and not have to worry about colleges watching me and the extra things and just play the game.”
Sean still has two more years of playing basketball and baseball for Shaker High School in Latham, New York. He’s choosing to play and isn’t limited by his commitment to UNC. He was even told by coaches during the recruitment process that it is great for athleticism to be a multiple-sport athlete.
There are talks that Sean might be drafted to the MLB and never have go to UNC, but for right now, no one can deny his excitement to play in a Carolina blue uniform.
The confidence exuded from Sean as he smirked and said “No, no fears, no.”