60 Minutes - 03/09/2025: Firing the Watchdogs, The Settlement, A Method to his Madness

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

The chief of the watchdog agency that protects federal workers and whistleblowers, Hampton Dellinger, was one of the first to be fired by President Trump. So were eighteen inspectors general and the chief of the board that protects federal workers. What is happening to independent watchdogs and why are they being dismantled? Correspondent Scott Pelley sits down with Dellinger and others to find out. Five years after it declared bankruptcy, Purdue Pharma and its wealthy owners, members of the Sackler family, have agreed to pay up to $7.4 billion in a proposed settlement that would deliver funds to victims of the opioid crisis. Correspondent Cecilia Vega investigates how this deal—potentially one of the largest opioid settlements ever—will affect the individuals and families who say Purdue’s opioids harmed them. With the NCAA basketball tournament, famously known as “March Madness,” tipping off this month, the University of Connecticut men's team is aiming for a historic three-peat. Correspondent Jon Wertheim provides an inside look at coach Dan Hurley's preparations, his strategies for managing a changing roster, and his pre-season rituals. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Or that luggage? Or that trench? Those jeans? That jacket? Those heels? Is anyone paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Win anyone paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning.

Winners find fabulous for less. You've got unlimited access to music, but time? Now that's limited. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard gets you unlimited PC Optima points, free grocery delivery, and time back for what matters. Save time and earn $1,100 in average value each year. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard. The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. Value is for illustrative purposes only. President Trump fired en masse the people who Congress put in place nearly 50 years ago to protect the rights of federal employees and the American public. Over the years and over the decades, we've been independent, apolitical, nonpartisan

watchdogs in our agency with the goal of improving the functioning of that agency to save money and to look out for the taxpayers. Do you have any experience, any guilt from living off the proceeds, at least in part, of the sale of OxyContin? No. Do you believe that Purdue bears any responsibility for the opioid crisis in this country? No. Tonight, 60 Minutes reports on Purdue Pharma's role in America's opioid crisis

and who will benefit from their proposed $7 billion bankruptcy settlement. Oh my God. Ladies and gentlemen, the two-time defending NCAA championship basketball coach, Dan Hurley. Oh, just let me suffer through that. How does that happen? He still suffers studying video from a loss. Hurley's wife... Oh, no, don't come home like that, please.

Not so much. I suspect it's very helpful to have someone in this household who doesn't necessarily rip her hair out when the team misses a screen or someone misses an open door. I don't even know what a screen is. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Stahl I'm Bill Whitaker I'm Anderson Cooper

I'm Sharon Alfonsi I'm John Wertheim I'm Cecilia Vega I'm Scott Pelley Those stories and more Tonight on 60 Minutes Hit pause on whatever you're listening to And hit play on your next adventure.

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Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. President Trump is casting aside those who might stand in his way. And among the first to go were at least 20 leaders of federal offices that were created by Congress to hold administrations accountable. You may not know it, but after Watergate, Congress set up a system to audit the executive branch and ensure the rights of federal workers. Those offices became known as watchdogs. Congress has guarded their independence from politics so that no president

can use these powerful auditors to punish enemies or hide their own fiascos. But now, for the first time in 44 years, President Trump has fired these officials en masse. One of them is Hampton Dellinger, who has a warning about what America is losing as it's firing the watchdogs. Going forward, you're always going to have now a person in my position who's going to be dependent on the president's good graces. That is not how Congress set up the position. That's not how it's been for the past 50 years.

But that independence, that protection is gone. And the message that sends to the watchdog agencies in general is what? I don't think we have watchdog agencies anymore. The inspector generals are gone. The head of the Office of Government Ethics is gone. I'm gone. The independent watchdogs who are working on behalf of the American taxpayers, on behalf of military veterans, they've been pushed out.

Before Hampton Dellinger was pushed out, he was head of the Office of Special Counsel, no relation to the office of the same name that prosecuted President Trump. Dellinger's office is where federal workers can bring employment complaints and where so-called whistleblowers, government employees, can report wrongdoing.

So, if a person sees fraud, for example, in the Department of Defense, and they're afraid of telling their supervisor because they think there will be retaliation, they go to you. They can. And that was a decision, not not by me but by Congress, that employees in the executive branch who are seeing something going wrong inside of an agency need a safe place to go that's still in the executive branch, but that is outside of the agency. And it works. A recent report said whistleblowers helped the Office of Special Counsel

find $110 million that was owed to veterans and uncovered the overprescription of opioids at a VA clinic. Thank you for considering my nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel. Dellinger is a Democrat, appointed by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate. My job, though, was not partisan at all. And my track record, I will stand on as someone who has played it by the book. I'm not looking to promote a president's agenda or thwart it. I'm just trying to make sure the laws are followed.

And you filed cases against the Biden administration. Time and time and time again. Dellinger's present term was supposed to run into 2029. What was the first moment that you learned that you had been fired? A Friday evening when I got an email from someone I didn't know purporting to be with the White House who said, you've been terminated, thank you for your service. And, of course, that email is just flatly inconsistent with the law, which says, I can only be terminated for a very good reason.

They didn't have a very good reason. They had no reason. Nothing? Nothing. The law says there has to be a reason, specifically one of three, neglect, inefficiency, or malfeasance. The termination email said none of that, so Dellinger sued to keep his job. I think every American respects the presidency, but I knew that this order, this directive, was unlawful. And ultimately, we are a nation of laws.

The only reason we have a president is because we have a supreme rule book, the United States Constitution. So as much as we all want the president to succeed, it's got to be within the framework of the law. But the law may have been ignored just four days into Trump's term when he fired 17 inspectors general all at once without cause. The inspectors general, or IGs for short, were auditors of top departments including defense, veterans affairs, and foreign aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Paul Martin was inspector general there.

Over the years and over the decades, we've been independent, apolitical, nonpartisan watchdogs in our agency with the goal of improving the functioning of that agency to save money and to look out for the taxpayers. Martin policed billions in foreign aid spending. Trump shut down USAID early and in haste. In the chaos of mass firings, emergency aid stopped moving. So Martin did his job, writing an alert that warned that half a billion dollars in food aid might spoil or be stolen. We issued the alert on a Monday. On Tuesday, I was terminated. What did that tell you?

That someone read our report. Have you ever been fired by a president before? I have not been fired by a president before. But some people watching these events say, doesn't the president always bring in his own team? He may bring his own team in, but there's been an agreement between Congress and administrations over the last 45 years that inspector generals are different. They're chosen to be apolitical, nonpartisan oversight officials in each government agency, and that has been respected from administration to administration. Paul Martin started in IG offices 25 years ago under Bill Clinton.

He was inspector general for NASA in Trump's first term and then Biden's. I've worked over more than six presidents, and I've never had a concern that issuing an audit or an investigation, even with what would be perceived as negative findings, could impact my employment. In these first weeks of the Trump administration, what is happening to these oversight offices? They're being dismantled and effectively being destroyed. Andrew Bakai is a former CIA officer and a lawyer who has written federal regulations protecting whistleblowers. Now it feels like an intentional dismantling. They're going after the things that someone who knows how to dismantle the system goes

after. And that's maybe perhaps the scariest part. David Kligerman is a former State Department attorney. Together, they represent whistleblowers for the nonprofit group Whistleblower Aid. Whistleblower Aid represented a client in the first Trump impeachment. What is the purpose of firing a Hampton Dellinger or the inspectors general? It's, in my opinion, to prevent the truth from coming out. The entire purpose of having a Hampton DellDellinger or the IG system is to ensure

that there's transparency within government. This is removing the umpires. This is just taking the umpires out of the game. There's no place to go. If you can't go to the special counsel or they effectively neuter it, then there's nowhere for you to go. This is a very, very big deal. But not a big deal, according to the president. He told reporters on Air Force One that firing the watchdogs is, quote, a very standard thing to do. He's wrong. No president has fired the heads of the watchdog offices en masse in 44 years. That was Reagan, when the offices were brand new, and he rehired a third of them.

And the reason you were given for being fired was what? Oh, no reason. The president gave no reason. Why fire Kathy Harris? Possibly because she's on the federal board that hears appeals of fired federal workers, the very people the Trump administration has been laying off by the tens of thousands. If she left, their avenue of appeal could be blocked at least temporarily. Harris is also fighting for her own job. For now, a judge has reinstated her. I swore an oath to the Constitution when I took this job that I would fulfill my term through March 2028.

And I believe very deeply in the civil service and in public service. And I just couldn't look myself in the mirror and walk away from this. I'm here to fight. Kathy Harris fights for fired workers, often after receiving their cases from the office of Hampton Dellinger. In his final days on the job, Dellinger worked to restore employment of workers whom, he says,

were fired by Trump illegally. So much is lost. You're losing talent. You're losing experience. You're losing experience. You're losing integrity. You're losing tens of thousands of military veterans who served our country in uniform, who put their lives on the line for America, and who came back and joined the federal civilian workforce.

But putting aside all the losses, at the end of the day, it has to be done the right way. If you're going to fire federal employees, it has to be done the right way. If you're going to fire federal employees, you've got to do it lawfully. And that's my concern, that these mass firings aren't necessarily in accordance with the law. In February, Dellinger took on the case of 5,000 fired employees of the Agriculture Department. He passed their case to Kathy Harris and her appeals board. Harris stopped the firing, at least temporarily. The Trump administration is still in court to get Harris removed.

But you've got to be able to be in this job and do what it takes to uphold the law and not be afraid. Not be afraid you're going to be fired at any moment if you make a decision that somebody doesn't like. I think the message to inspector generals is that the oversight of these programs, particularly if they're negative findings, is not welcome anymore. A message loud and clear now, according to former USAID inspector general Paul Martin.

It's not welcome in the administration, this administration, and it's not welcome in this current Congress. What should Congress be doing? Congress created the inspector generals and relied on, for the past 45 years, their findings and their audits of investigations to conduct aggressive oversight of any administration's programs. Since the firing of the inspector generals, there has been a deafening silence in Congress as far as pushing back.

Why are they not speaking? Unclear. Martin worries that independence lost might never be regained. I'm afraid that we've moved on to an era in which every administration will come in and assume that they're going to replace all the inspector generals with people of their choice, that the secretary of treasury or the attorney general will get to pick his or her inspector general. And that will turn the independent IG system on its head.

If your office is beholding to the president, what is lost? Independence, accountability, a safe place for federal government employee whistleblowers to come to and know that they'll be respected and protected. That's gone. Other watchdogs are suing to challenge the president's power, but Hampton Dellinger is out. Last week, an order from an appeals court removed him. He told us that taking his fight to the Supreme Court would take months or a year, and by then, his whistleblower office would be devastated. The Trump administration argued to the court that

it needed to, quote, put an end to Dellinger's rogue use of executive authority over the president's objections. What's your response to that? If wanting the rules to be followed is the new definition of going rogue, then call me by that name. I don't think I was going rogue. I think I was being a good American who believes in the rule of law. That's all I was trying to do, is make sure the laws are being followed. Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small hot coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's Taxes Extra.

When Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, declared bankruptcy in 2019, it had no debt and was worth more than a billion dollars. How is this possible? Well, Purdue was facing trillions in claims over its role in the opioid crisis, which has killed more than 800,000 Americans. Purdue and its wealthy owners, members of the Sackler family, wanted a bankruptcy settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits. That massive settlement is now on the table. But after five years, the legal battle goes on. The Sacklers continue to own Purdue Pharma, and to this day, not a single victim has received any compensation. Bankruptcy is not about justice. That's what I learned in this process.

What is it about? It's about money. It's about money. It's about who gets paid the most and who gets paid out in what order. Ryan Hampton is one of the 140,000 people who filed a claim against Purdue saying they or someone they love were harmed by its opioids. I received an absurd amount of medication from the doctors that I was seeing. Hampton was 23 years old when he says he was prescribed OxyContin in 2003 for a knee injury. A one-time White House intern, Hampton says he quickly became addicted to the powerful opioid,

lost his job working on political campaigns, and became homeless. You lost a lot. You lost your home. You lost friends through all this. I lost my dignity. I lost my self-worth. I can remember many times on the streets and thinking if this is all my life is, as long as I am able to get my fix, then I'm completely fine with it. With treatment, Hampton overcame his addiction 10 years ago and began speaking out against Purdue and the Sacklers. We took private money from the family that created this crisis. He was appointed by the Justice Department in 2019 to represent the financial interests of victims.

For two years, he served on a committee of creditors in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case. My name is Mortimer David Alphonse Sackler. Teresa Elizabeth Sackler. Richard S. Sackler. As part of that case, in 2020, seven Sacklers, all former Purdue board members or employees, were deposed. And the top-selling opioid at Purdue Pharma was OxyContin, correct? Yes. Dr. Richard Sackler is a former president of Purdue, who in 2001 helped turn OxyContin into what was at the time the most prescribed brand-name narcotic for pain in the United States. In his deposition, he described the drug's benefits and was asked

about its deadly risks. Now, higher dose OxyContin was more expensive, but it was also more dangerous. Is that accurate? Objection. You may answer. It wasn't more dangerous for the patient than any other pill. David Sackler, Richard's son, helped manage the family's wealth and also served on Purdue's board of directors. What responsibility does Purdue have to the hundreds of thousands of patients who were prescribed Purdue opioids and got OUD? OUD is opioid use disorder or addiction. What responsibility does it have to them?

These were defined risks on the label, and while we feel terrible for them, I think we've taken a dramatic amount of responsibility for them. This past January, the Sacklers and Perdue agreed to pay up to $7.4 billion to settle the bankruptcy case, potentially one of the largest opioid settlements ever. And while that sounds like a lot, there are 140,000 claims alleging harm, and just about 10% of the total amount will go to victims. Claiming nearly 90% are creditors, including 48 states,

thousands of hospitals, insurance companies, and top pharmacy chains, all of which say they too paid a price in the opioid epidemic. It felt like every major company under the sun was coming for a part of Purdue. Billions of dollars in some cases. Billions of dollars. Is this just a money grab? It is a money grab. You know, CVS, they have a pretty massive claim in the bankruptcy. CVS was charged by the Department of Justice for knowingly filling suspicious opioid prescriptions as late as last year.

You were on the inside. You were privy to a lot of information that had never been seen publicly. What did you learn that was most surprising? The most surprising fact for me was that victims were not first in line, but last in line, because there were larger corporate and government interests that wanted to get paid first.

Court records show that lawyers, mediators, and others have already pocketed nearly $1 billion paid by Purdue. 41 firms have so far been paid more money than victims are expected to get in the $7.4 billion deal, with senior lawyers representing the company charging as much as $2,645 an hour. It's sickening. Do you not see this as something that could help families? This could be the only recourse they have. Absolutely. But do I think they're getting a fair shake? Do I think that they're getting

anywhere near what they're owed, knowing that you can't put a price tag to that? No way. Is your sense that a lot of those folks might actually not receive payment? Yes. That's a kick in the gut. It is a kick in the gut. To have a valid claim, many victims will need to show proof of a Purdue opioid prescription. That means there are families who do not expect to get a dime in the settlement, like Pete Jackson and Emily Walden. I've talked to a lot of parents. I know a lot of people that file claims, and nobody wants their

blood money. But do they have a right to it? Did they pay for a funeral? Did they pay for treatment due to the actions of that company and the Sacklers? Should they get that money back? Absolutely. Walden says her son TJ became addicted to opioids after taking OxyContin as a teen. He was 21 and in the Kentucky National Guard when he overdosed 13 years ago. TJ's death certificate lists oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin and other prescription opioids, as a factor. But in the bankruptcy case, that may not be enough proof. If it's on their death certificate, they should have a claim. That's not right. Why should someone who wasn't taking this drug as it was prescribed be eligible for any kind of compensation at all?

They knew they were making massive profits on putting these on the street. They knew that. Why would they not be held liable for that? You knew it was being diverted, and you let it go. Pete Jackson's daughter, Emily, was 18 and days away from starting college in Illinois when she died in 2006. Her family says she took OxyContin for the first time while drinking at a sleepover with cousins. You've compared OxyContin to leaving a loaded gun on the table. My family was blindsided. She didn't know that one pill could kill you. One pill?

One pill. Jackson blames the death of his daughter and countless others on the way Purdue and the Sacklers marketed OxyContin, pumping up sales despite reports of widespread abuse. What would you want to hear from the Sacklers? I don't want to hear anything. I want to hear the jail cell door slam. What does justice look like to you? Justice would look like a full trial of the Sacklers and Purdue criminal trial, first and foremost. But that is increasingly unlikely.

In the bankruptcy depositions, Mariana Sackler, Richard Sackler's daughter, claimed not to know whether Purdue's opioids have harmed anyone. Her job was to help Purdue market and sell OxyContin. Many people have been harmed by opioids. I don't know that many people have been harmed by the opioids that Purdue sold. Do you suspect that people have been harmed by opioids that Purdue sold? I don't know. If I understand correctly, people have been killed by opioids,

but you don't know whether any of them were sold by Purdue? Yes. Purdue the company has pleaded guilty to four felonies over three decades, including that Purdue lied about OxyContin as less addictive and less prone to abuse than other pain medications, like in this promotional video. Less than 1% of patients taking opioids actually become addicted. But to this day, no member of the Sackler family or Purdue employee

has ever faced felony charges. Companies are not driverless cars. If a company commits a crime, that means there are people, executives, who have used the company or caused the company to commit that crime. Former federal prosecutor Rick Mountcastle led the four-year investigation that resulted in Perdue's 2007 guilty plea. His team reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents. You were ready to charge three top Purdue executives with felonies.

Yes. You were hoping they would roll on their bosses. Yeah. We're not only hoping, but we figured it was probably a good possibility. Their bosses were members of the Sackler family, who for decades held a majority on Purdue's board of directors. But Mountcastle says the felony charges were blocked by his superiors at the Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration.

Instead, the three executives, Purdue's top lawyer Howard Udell, medical director Paul Goldenheim, and President Michael Friedman, pleaded guilty to misdemeanors but denied having any knowledge of Perdue's crimes. Did the Sackler family scapegoat those three executives? Quite the contrary. We were very loyal to them. You were so loyal that you paid them millions of dollars in bonuses after they pled guilty to criminal charges? We did make termination payments to each of them. I don't remember the amounts. Would it surprise you to know that the amounts were $5 million to Howard Udall and $3 million to Michael Friedman? No, it would not surprise me.

Decisions are being made not based on the facts and what's in the best interest of the American people. These are decisions that are being made based on politics and personal gain. You spent more than 30 years as a federal prosecutor. Where does all of this leave your faith in the Justice Department? I am greatly disappointed in the Justice Department? I am greatly disappointed in the Justice Department because everything that the department has done since 2007 to today has been to protect the billionaires, the Sackler family. The Sacklers maintain their innocence and have agreed to settle claims in the bankruptcy not as an admission of

guilt, but to end years of litigation. The family will also give up ownership of Purdue, but their vast wealth remains. In the years leading up to the bankruptcy, the Sacklers took about $11 billion out of Purdue, more than 70% of the company's total assets. 60 Minutes asked to interview members of Richard Sackler's family, but did not hear back on that request. Do you have any experience, any guilt from living off the proceeds, at least in part, of the sale of OxyContin? No. Do you believe that Purdue bears any responsibility for the opioid crisis in this country?

No. Purdue Pharma told us in a statement that they are hard at work on finalizing the settlement and delivering billions to fight the opioid crisis as soon as possible. When the NCAA basketball tournament, better known as March Madness, starts in nine days, the University of Connecticut will try and do something that no men's team has done since Richard Nixon was president, win a third straight national title. You might think this would infuse UConn's man in charge with blazing optimism and swollen confidence and sunny exuberance, but you got the wrong guy, especially in what's been a topsy-turvy Husky season. Dan Hurley, only 52, is a generationally accomplished basketball coach.

He's also, by his own admission, alternately a brash braggart, a first-team doom and gloomer, and a top-tier eccentric. But say this, there is a method to his madness. Get down there! This is not a participation trophy, coach. Dan Hurley is a human furnace of intensity. Hell bent on wringing every ounce of potential from his latest roster of UConn players. It's a zero-sum game. The one that wins is going to have temporary relief. The one that loses is going into a hellhole of suffering. I mean, that for me is how I look at these sports competitions. And then there's this side of him, a championship coach burning sage the night before the season opener,

hoping to ward off bad juju at the free throw line, the three-point line, and dead spots on the court. Next in Hurley's ritual, and dead spots on the court. Next in Hurley's ritual, spritzes of holy water. Finally, out come bags of garlic bulbs. He's not playing for the camera here, folks. That's the man of the moment in college hoops, on hands and knees, appeasing the basketball gods by placing offerings under the home bleachers. Let the games begin. That was November.

Oh, man. Four months later... This season so far has been blank. Unlike the last two. Meaning what? Just, I mean, at times, very frustrating. You know, gratifying, relief, suffering, relief, suffering. The suffering began early.

On the team's first road trip, UConn, then ranked second nationally, headlined the field at the Maui Invitational Tournament, a chance for three games and some island R&R, unless you're Dan Hurley. We gotta talk about Maui. Oh, no. Tie game, overtime.

Who gets a technical foul under those circumstances? This guy right here. And this game is tied! 92 all, the clock dwindling in overtime, UConn's ball. A missed jumper, and on the rebound, a foul is called on UConn's number 30, Liam McNeely. Wow. Left side of your screen, that's Hurley so apoplectic he's floored in more ways than one. The force of the blown call literally knocked me to the ground is how I'm trying to justify it.

Unamused, the officials tagged Hurley with a game-changing technical foul. UConn lost that game and two more in successive nights. Hurley was, by turns, irate and inconsolable. I gather after that, Gino Auriemma, the women's coach here, 11-time national championship winner reached out to you. Remember what he said? You know, if the only outcome that makes you a successful coach or a successful season is whether you hang up a national championship banner,

then you should get out immediately. That register? Not at the moment, because I think in the back of my mind, I was saying, well, what the hell else am I in this for? you hang up a national championship banner and you should get out immediately. Did I register? Not at the moment, because I think in the back of my mind, I was saying, well, what the hell else am I in this for? But then he stayed at practice and he kept coaching me from the sideline,

like barking at me a little bit. Hey, hey, Dan, you know, the joy of relationships with your players, the joy of getting the most out of your team. If you're only in it for the championship pursuit and none of that other stuff means anything to you anymore and it's just banners and rings, then you should get out because it ain't going to happen every year, buddy. You count steady to win eight straight after Maui, but this season has been riddled with

inexplicable lapses. It's made Hurley wistful for the two previous seasons when his Huskies didn't just win the title each year, they ran roughshod over the March Madness field. No opponent came within 13 points of UConn in any of the tournament games. Hurley offered us a glimpse of how a championship coach goes about the job. Most colleges are stealing ball screen offensive ideas from the NBA, whereas for us it was taking off-ball movement, less dribbling, more passing, more cutting, more screening

that would represent more of a European professional model. But other guys can borrow from the Lakers and the Celtics. You're going to Turkish League. We're going to Turkey. We're going to Israel. We're going to France, England. We're going all over the place. This is a heck of a thing to look at. Hurley showed us his play sheet from UConn's national championship win over Purdue last April.

Every play affixed with multiple options. It's five-man chess, and Hurley is a grandmaster. All but fated for the role. Are you kidding me? Stop celebrating! His father, Bob Sr., was a hard-ass Hall of Fame high school coach in Jersey City, who won 28 state titles. Hurley! He finishes!

Dan's older brother Bobby, an iconic college player at Duke, won back-to-back national championships of his own. Dan, on the other hand, struggled as a point guard at Seton Hall. You've talked about being the third Hurley. Yeah, just how I failed to play up to, live up to, succeed up to. You know, the Hurley standard in basketball was, it caused a lot of pain. Bobby's better! Fans piled on, sometimes chanting, Bobby's better.

Bobby's better! It gets to the point where you're a shell of yourself. You're not shooting the ball the way you have your whole life. You have a hard time catching the ball or even dribbling the ball. You know, you've got the yips in a way. In December 1993, it got so bad he left the Seton Hall team after only two games to get his mind right. Dan rejoined the following year, but the joy from playing basketball had been drained. Coaching though, has offered a second chance.

I gotta make up for what I didn't achieve as a player, and I gotta make up for that right now as a coach, because my career eats away at me still. Still? It bothers me. If I see a picture of myself with a Seton Hall uniform or a clip, there's an embarrassment about how that went. With his success at UConn, he finally feels worthy of the family name. It's not me versus my dad as a coach or, you know, what I've accomplished relative to Bob in basketball now. It's just this bucket that we're all just going to contribute to,

and we'll see if we're one of the best basketball families of all time. That's what the goal is now. For me, and that's been a shift, and it probably didn't happen for me until I had my moment. During his moment, Hurley's been the toast of Connecticut. The Los Angeles Lakers tried to poach him as their coach last summer. Daggy Hurley! Hurley declined, reckoning that he's better built for the college game. Excruciating as this season has been at times.

Oh my God. As evidenced by this coach's meeting dissecting a February loss to St. John's. Oh my God. Oh God. Oh, just let me suffer through that. How does that happen? But he knows better than to bring the agony of his work home. Oh no, don't come home like that, please.

Like, I am not in the mood. Andrea Hurley has a standard pep talk for the college sweetheart she married in 1997. I love you, but get over yourself. She's very tough on me. Because he'll get himself so down, and he'll get in such a funk that if I get in a funk with him, we're going to be no good. So I have to almost kind of like,

I don't want to say shame him, but like, this is ridiculous. It's a stupid game, and snap out of it one team wins and one team loses what's the big deal it's like i always said it's a 50 50 shot there's somebody wins there's not like 12 options you could have i suspect it's very helpful to have someone in this household who doesn't necessarily rip her hair out when the team misses a screen or someone i don't even know what that is with the way that I don't even know what a screen is. I don't even know what that is. With the way that I'm wired. You don't know what a screen is.

I have no idea. She doesn't know. And she's not playing for the Cavs. She has no idea. I have no idea. And if I was coming home to somebody that wanted to talk about a new lineup, a new defense, rehash the game, my personality type and the way I'm wired, it would never work. That sounds really healthy. Yeah. Sounds like your perspective balances his intensity. This sounds really healthy. Yeah.

It sounds like your perspective balances his intensity. Oh yeah, very well. Very well. This is where my day starts. To ease Dan's churning mind, Andrea designed a private basement sanctuary. First thing every morning, he comes here to clear his head. This is it. This is it.

We got a little bit of everything in here. It's part shrine. I take my Bible out, I'll pray, and then I'll do some meditation. Art studio, bat cave meets man cave. You know, I have an affinity for superheroes. I wear the socks, I wear the underwear. The animal kingdom is represented, too. I keep the referee in the corner over there.

You yell at your zebra the way you do the three guys at court? I do. I admonish. That's why he's in the corner. Not all of Hurley's rough edges have been zenned over in his basement. In January, Hurley harangued a ref, and Internet lip readers filled in the blanks. You talk openly about the role of doubt and self-doubt, and then there was also the viral video of you during a game this season telling a ref, you know where I'm going, saying you're the best coach in the bleeping sport. Help us reconcile that.

I'm complex. Now, listen, I had no idea. If I knew the camera was on me, there's no way I would have said it. But I'm embarrassed. So, yeah, when I get into it, sometimes I will say or do anything that I think may give me some type of an advantage, either with an official or with firing my team up, or with carrying myself with a confidence and a swagger that is going to give my team the ability to play better.

Hurley harkens back to an era when college basketball celebrated its larger-than-life coaches. Hardly the biggest change in a sport where players now can enter a transfer portal and shop for the highest bidder, a disruptive force for even the best teams. Do you have players right now that are fielding offers and considering playing for other teams next season? 50% of my roster or more. 50? 50% of my roster or more is at least, you know,

considering going in the portal. If not, already knows what school that they're going to. Whoa. Half your team is already thinking in terms of whether they want to transfer to another program or not. Yeah, and in a couple of those cases, they've already talked to the coaching staff at Future School and have an idea of what their NIL is going to be there.

The money. Yeah. What does it do to a culture of a college basketball team when half the guys are fielding offers for next season to go elsewhere? Well, I mean, look at the volatility this year. The level of volatility in college sports, this has now become a year-to-year proposition. The game has changed completely.

But Dan Hurley still is firmly committed to this team, one that did pass the 20-win threshold yet again. And he's approaching March Madness with optimism, the guarded variety. Can you win three in a row? Yeah, there's a path to it. Can this be a successful season if you don't win the third straight title?

Gino, Gino, Gino. Not, no, not totally because I didn't put together a team that could do it. So once you've done it, anytime that you don't do it, you know, deep down inside, you're not going to look at those years the same way. There's going to be a feeling of failure that comes with that. Even if you leave it all out on the floor, if you don't hang a third banner? Fail.

Fail. I mean, it's fail. I can live with it. It won't be this off-season of pain and suffering and, you know, it's just killing you the whole summer and off-season. That's why I'll be able to live with it, but it will still be a failure. Now, the last minute of 60 Minutes. Next Sunday on 60 Minutes, Bill Whitaker's investigation into mysterious drone invasions over restricted U.S. military sites. Do you believe that these drones are a spying system, a spying platform? What would a logical person conclude? That, that these are spying incursions.

And yet, I can tell you, I am privy to classified briefings at the highest level. I think the Pentagon and the National Security Advisors are still mystified. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.