A Dan Hurley scarecrow went up in Wethersfield one night, and by the next morning it had become the center of the college basketball internet.
The creation came from Ryan Lawlor and Jeff Bottaro, two friends who entered Wethersfield’s Scarecrows Along Main event for the first time and wanted something tied to the moment that had lived rent-free in Huskies fans’ heads for months: Hurley’s unforgettable headbutt of referee Roger Ayers in last year’s Elite Eight.
Lawlor, a UConn men’s basketball superfan, floated the idea while the two bounced around possible designs. Bottaro wasn’t sold at first, worried they wouldn’t be able to pull off Hurley’s stare. But after “way-too-many hours,” several trips in and out of hardware stores and a few cuts on their fingertips, they had the scarecrow standing outside The Charles restaurant Wednesday evening.
By Thursday, the thing had taken off. Hurley recognized the likeness during a busy morning at Big East Basketball Media Days, and the photo of the scarecrow racked up millions of impressions on social media in just a few hours, drawing attention from ESPN, Yahoo! Sports and Bleacher Report, among others.
“It’s incredible,” Bottaro told CT Insider. “What’s cool about it is how quickly everyone gravitated toward it.
You think about like how long ago the basketball game was - maybe it was out of everyone's mind - and then now it's almost like a statue of the moment, right? I think the fans are going crazy for it because they love how intense Hurley gets, and that moment just shows you just how absolutely intense he gets.
It's so good.”
The setup uses styrofoam heads from Michaels and a skin-toned burlap sack to recreate Hurley and Ayers’ collision, with the whole thing dressed in Hurley’s familiar navy-blue suit. The spot outside The Charles turned out to be a lucky break, too. The restaurant is one of the more popular places in town, and Lawlor said Hurley, who lives across the Connecticut River in Glastonbury, frequents it.
Now the scarecrow stands as the most recognizable entry in the 31st annual Scarecrows Along Main event, which features more than 170 straw-stuffed figures around Wethersfield’s historic downtown this week. The event draws thousands of visitors each year, and fans can vote for Lawlor and Bottaro’s creation, along with the other entries, via the link here.
For Lawlor, the inspiration goes back to the game itself. He watched UConn’s comeback against Duke from his couch, even though he owns season tickets and has attended the Huskies’ last three Final Four appearances. The Ansonia native said he never imagined he’d be sitting at home for a game that started with Duke racing to a 19-point lead and taking a 44-29 advantage into halftime.
But UConn kept chipping away. Silas Demary Jr. hit a free throw with 10 seconds left to cut the deficit to two, and on the next possession the Huskies got a deflection on the inbound during full-court pressure. That set up star freshman Braylon Mullins near mid-court for a 35-foot game-winner.
“I was watching [the game] with my son; he was kind of not paying attention,” Lawlor recalled. “I went, 'Oh my god!' And he just got so scared because I jumped up and down and I started freaking out.”
“Of course, at that time, I wasn't like, 'I'm going to do a scarecrow of this.' But when I started thinking of ideas, I'm like, 'Wait, this would be perfect. They can be leaning in together, and it's kind of easy - it's harder than we thought, but oh my god!”
Lawlor and Bottaro said their wives and three sons between them put in plenty of work over the past month, helping bring the idea to life. They also know the job isn’t done yet. The scarecrow has to survive through Halloween, and both men are worried about wind and heavy rain as October arrives.
For now, though, they got a surreal evening out of it, sneaking past television cameras for dinner at The Charles on Thursday night. With UConn not set to play Syracuse in its first exhibition game for another 11 days, their basketball attention has shifted to the Wethersfield Draft League, where they’re hoping to keep their 3-0 start rolling with a win Sunday morning.
“Now's the time,” Bottaro said. “You've got to ride the wave, the peak.
We could be at peak right now, but it's going to be out there for a month. The fact that we literally put [the scarecrow] in right before it got dark [Wednesday] night, and by 10:30 [Thursday] morning the whole world knew about it, is crazy to me.”
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