above: Jeané Coakley and Scott Burrell with children Cora and Coakley in downtown Stamford
There is no “I” in “team.” Neither will you find it in Jeané Coakley or Scott Burrell, or in their children, Cora and Coakley. Whether by happenstance or design, the tiny vowel that represents individuality is absent from their names and lives.
For this Stamford couple, the team approach to life seems appropriate given their heavy background in sports. Coakley has worked for SportsNet New York since 2010 and currently serves as the network’s reporter on the New York Jets. Burrell, a former basketball star at the University of Connecticut who won an NBA title with the Chicago Bulls, is now the head coach at Southern Connecticut State University. They have been married since 2015.
While sports careers have perks, the lifestyle is not easy for a married couple. “For six months out of the year,’’ Coakley says, “we’re like two ships passing in the night.”
Like The Beatles said, they get by with a little help from their friends. And family. And whoever else is willing to pitch in with whatever is needed for childcare, transportation or school pickup. The work schedules of a television sports reporter and a basketball coach are ever-changing, and it takes a vast support network to keep the family organized.
“At the end of March, I attended owners’ meetings in Florida and had the schedule all worked out,’’ Coakley remembers. “Then my flight was late. I panicked, and I called Scott, but he had his own work commitment. We have a good team around us. One time, we had three different babysitters for one night. Our kids are really flexible, and we have one babysitter who has been in their lives forever.”
Jeané’s sister Marcia has been entrusted frequently to help the family work through the scheduling challenges. “Jeané is very organized,’’ Marcia says. “A lot of times over the past five or six years, I would take the train to Stamford and spend the weekend there. It’s almost like her children were my kids. We didn’t have kids at the time, so it was nice to grow up with them. We’re all a really close-knit family.”
More Than Sports
While Jeané and Scott’s affiliations with athletics make them publicly known, it was their mutual interests that pulled them together and helped determine the path of their relationship.
“Obviously, she’s attractive, and she loved sports,’’ Burrell says. “So it was pretty quick, but then we both learned more about each other. Our fathers have the same birthday. She went to school at Quinnipiac, in my hometown. I mean, it’s like a lot of things that make you believe this is the one that you should be with.”
“We like a lot of the same things, so we have fun together,” Coakley says. “We work out together, which we love. We play cards. We’re competitive, we like sports. We love going out to eat, and we love to travel. We got back from a trip to Arizona and visited several national parks. We love exploring and seeing new things. We were both older when we met, so we both kind of knew what we liked.”
The couple’s friends notice something more in their relationship than mutual respect and common interests. They are both genuine and caring, and learned lessons in relationship development from their parents. They serve as similarly strong role models for their son, Coakley, nine, and daughter, Cora, who turned seven in July.
“The thing about them is they’re both ultra successful in their careers,’’ says Mike Papale, a longtime friend who is also a member of the “team” that offers scheduling support. “Scott reached the pinnacle of his career, and Jeané has made it to the top of her field. But I think what sets them apart is who they are as people. They treat everybody the same way.”
Sean Doherty has known Burrrell since 2009, when they worked on the coaching staff of Tom Moore at Quinnipiac. He says Scott’s personality is similar to his late father, Sam, who was a legendary figure in the New Haven sports arena.
“You could tell that Scott had a good upbringing,’’ Doherty says. “When people would come up to Quinnipiac, it was always good to have Coach Burrell around. He would do all the right things. I saw the same thing in Jeané. She has that same type of family bond, and they’ve done that with their children. They have a strong sense of family, they’re very involved, and you can tell they benefited from a great upbringing.”
DeFininG Moment
Burrell cemented legendary status in 1990 in UConn basketball lore when he fired the pass that led to the game-winning basket by Tate George in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The top-seeded Huskies, who had blown a 19-point second-half lead, fell behind 70-69 with one second left.
Coach Jim Calhoun designed a play that called for Burrell, a first-round draft choice of the Seattle Mariners, to inbound the ball. He fired a 94-foot laser to George, who got free and made the shot to send the Huskies to the Elite Eight. The shot — and the pass — is one of the defining moments in UConn basketball history and has helped propel them to become a perennial member of the national college hoops stage.
“People thought the game was over,’’ Burrell remembers. “I don’t think it mattered whether I was a baseball player or not. Clemson made one of the biggest comebacks in NCAA history, and we were deflated. I just knew I had to be my part. I saw Tate open in the corner, and I had to throw a little corner pass, like an NFL touchdown pass in the corner of the end zone. Tate did the rest by making the shot.”
Coakley, a 10-year-old girl at the time living in upstate New York, said she had to research the legendary play. “Someone came up to us in New Haven, and they were going on about the pass,’’ she says. “I went to find it and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s a good pass.’ Then I interviewed Coach Calhoun, and he said he was so upset that they had blown a big lead. He said a lot of people remember Scott as the baseball player, but he also had an arm for football. He thought that helped him just as much. So it was pretty impressive. I’ll give him that.”
Burrell, a first-round draft pick of the Charlotte Hornets, went on to an eight-year career in the NBA and won a title with the Chicago Bulls in 1998. The pass that helped win the Clemson game, however, is the play for which many UConn fans will remember the former Huskies star.
Coakley has her athletic exploits as well. She has run two marathons and 11 half marathons, and earned All-State honors in volleyball and softball in high school. She also played soccer and competed in gymnastics.
Scott cheers on Jeané before continuing their joint workout.
Stamford Connection
The couple has found Stamford to be the perfect spot for their work-life balance. While Coakley frequently heads to Florham Park in New Jersey for her Jets beat, Scott travels the Merritt Parkway for his job at Southern.
While it’s an inexact comparison to the team analogy, Coakley’s attention to detail and knack for keeping schedules aligned her in a role similar to a general manager and head coach. Burrell serves as the co-head coach and the assistant who will do whatever is needed to keep the unit in almost perfect harmony. As any two-income family realizes with school, sports and work complexities, there are going to be snafus that require extra sets of hands.
As their home for nearly a decade, they find the city and its vast array of cultural opportunities, restaurants and outlets for their kids the perfect spot to raise their family.
“It’s not a big city, we love the neighborhood and it’s an awesome place to live,’’ Coakley says. “It’s a good halfway point for both of us, and we feel like we’re in the suburbs. I didn’t know anything about Stamford before moving here, and it’s been a great move for our family.”