The fascinating story of Coach Hurley and St. Anthony's High School has been told in compelling style by Bergen Record columnist Adrian Wojnarowski. The book which chronicles last years undefeated season is very well done with a behind the scenes look at the Coach, the players and the school. NJ Hoops got a chance to talk with Wojnarowski abou the book.

I contacted him in the spring of 2003, and visited with him a few times to talk about the project. Ultimately, I told him that thirty years from now, when someone asked, "Well, what was Bob Hurley and St. Anthony all about?" that they could put the book down on a table and say, "It's right here."

Bob was very receptive to the idea of allowing me an all-access pass to the program for a year, but the longer process was meeting with the school trustees and administration. Once they had a comfort level with the project, we were on our way. What allowed to make the storylines in the book so compelling was the complete and unwavering access that the school, players, and mostly, Bob Hurley gave me.

From beginning to end, he never flinched. I had complete autonomy to write and report as I saw fit. It spoke to Bob Hurley's complete confidence and belief in his way, in his style, to allow such a complete dissection of it.

After reading the final book over a week in January, he called me up and said, "It's really good." And that's really been it. While we still talk a great deal, and he's been very kind to aid in the promotion of the book (a percentage of the proceeds go to St. Anthony High School), we really haven't sat down and discussed its contents in great detail. Perhaps that's something that we'll do once his season is over, maybe over a beer at P.J. Ryan's in Jersey City.

There were several surprises, and I think they keep the readers turning the pages.

I knew this story would be good, but I really didn't know. The storylines of the lives of the people I followed, in the story of school's fight for survival, and the actual season itself, was beyond my wildest imagination. The burdens on the kids ---- trying to break away from a family tree of drug dealers in one instance, or trying to deal with the rejection of a birth father, or fathering a baby as a high school player ---- were immense. It was such a struggle for this group to make it standing to the finish line. As Hurley's most imperfect team began to chase a perfect season, the season and the games themselves became a vehicle for the group's redemption.

The story of Sean McCurdy was compelling. Here was a young white kid who had moved down to Jersey City from a privileged life in suburban Connecticut with his mother, trying to use St. Anthony as a springboard to big-time college basketball. But watching Sean trying to manage the pressures heaped on him, and perform at a level to keep the Big East, ACC and Big 10 schools recruiting in him --- as well as just trying to be an outsider fitting into an environment where he wasn't always welcomed ---- was a fascinating element to the overall narrative.

But mostly, the biggest surprise is the investment that Bob Hurley, the two Felician nuns who run the school, Sister Felicia and Sister Alan, and the trustees and teachers at St. Anthony make to keep the school open, and keep St. Anthony true to its mission of educating the poorest of the poor in Jersey City. From Hurley to the school itself, I've never been around a group of people who do more with less.

People forget sometimes: St. Anthony still doesn't have a gym, and Bob Hurley has never really played a true home game.

On a personal level, I had so much fun riding the bus with the team, standing in the corner of the locker room for pre-game, half-time and post-games speeches, watching the practices every day and trailing Bob Hurley to coaching clinics and on scouting trips, and ultimately, seeing the world through the eyes of 17 year old kids again. It's easy to grow awfully cynical spending your career as a pro sports columnist in the New York market, dealing with drug stories, contract disputes and college corruption. It was invigorating to spend that year with St. Anthony, and take that journey through a season of high school hoops with them. And I think people will feel the same way when reading the book.

Every one has probably played a sport in high school, and can relate to what it felt like in the gym, or on the field, for a big game.

From the very beginning, everyone was extremely gracious and open with me. Over time, relationships and trusts developed and that allowed people to really open up about their lives and stories with me. Sometimes, we were dealing with very sensitive and personal issues, but people were willing to tell whole and complete stories. For example, the assistant principal and athletic director, Sister Alan, was very open in her ongoing fight with cancer.

I owe Bob Hurley the greatest debt in this department. He is old school, and his practices and locker room scenes could be extremely volatile in the book. There are very few coaches, on any level, who would've allowed himself to be described and depicted in those moments. He believes in his methods, and trusted that the results – that his track record of getting kids out rough and tumble beginnings in Jersey City and onto good, productive lives --- would ultimately prove that the ends justified the means.

Never once in the entire year that I followed him did he say to me, "Don't use that in the book."

One of the questions that really lured me to St. Anthony to spend the year following him was this: "Why is Bob Hurley still there?" I think the book goes a long way to helping the reader answer that question.

He would do wonderfully as a college coach, but he would never be happy at that level. And he would never be fulfilled. He would hate how much of a business it was, and how hard it would be to manage kids 18-22, instead of molding those 14-18. He would hate spending time with the boosters, and meeting with assistant athletic directors, and spending time away from his wife, Chris, while recruiting on the road.

If he had the right job, Hurley would've taken teams to the Final Four. But I don't think he'll ever lose a night of sleep because he didn't chase that opportunity. He's a Jersey City guy, and he'll always be happiest capping off a game-night with a burger and a glass of wine with his wife at P.J. Ryan's.

I think there are many great and dedicated high school coaches in America, but I believe that Bob Hurley is the last bigger-than-life scholastic coach. These days, the gods of high school basketball are AAU coaches and sneaker executives. It's a different world, a different culture, and so much of the book shows Hurley raging against it all. He wants to keep things the way they were, and in his gym, the clock is always set to 1965.

So many things conspired to make Hurley unique to his city, his school, and his players. He was a probation officer for 30 years, a guy who grew up on the same streets as his players. He has a credibility with parents and kids in Jersey City that is just unparalleled in coaching. Every kid there grows up dreaming of wearing that St. Anthony jacket someday, and I'm not sure that there are many kids, in many cities anymore, who dream about a high school varsity jacket.

They are a vanishing breed, because kids find discipline in fewer and fewer places in their lives. As great of a teacher of the game as Hurley is, the true key to his success is discipline. There's a toughness, a tenacity, a purpose, that his teams have that really make it tough to beat them.

I still worry about St. Anthony when Bob Hurley finally retires as coach. While the school has a terrific new board of trustees who've worked hard to turn the school into a fund-raising machine for the long-run, the cost of educating over 60 percent of a study body who lives under the poverty line will not get easier. Without the aura and attention that Hurley brings to the school, I think it will someday be even a tougher challenge to keep it open.

Yes, the book has been optioned to be made into a movie to Academy-Award winning producer Ed Saxon and Participant Productions. Saxon's credits include, "The Silence of the Lambs," "Philadelphia," and "Adaptation." There's no guarantee on when the movie will be produced, but the process is getting off to a quick start.

Click Here to order "The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty." through Amazon.comSt. Anthony

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Coach Hurley and Adrian Wojnarowski will be at Bookends on 232 East Ridgewood Avenue in Ridgewood, NJ on Saturday at 1 p.m. signing copies of, "The Miracle of St. Anthony."