There were no famous names on the Carolina Panthers’ 2003–04 Super Bowl roster. Five years earlier, the quarterback had warmed NFL Europe benches as an Amsterdam Admirals second-stringer. The head coach carried a résumé cluttered with collegiate assistant coaching gigs. Just eight of the 62 players had any kind of Super Bowl experience.

By contrast, Marty Hurney, B.A.G.S. 1993, the team’s general manager, had experienced five playoff seasons, three runs to the Super Bowl and two Super Bowl championships during the 1980s. His name was often the first seen in football-related newspaper articles — because he had experienced all these big games as a young sportswriter with an NFL beat.

From 1982 to 1988, before he began his career as a sports executive, Hurney made his living covering the Joe Gibbs-coached Washington Redskins for The Washington Times. After an 11-year career in sports journalism, Hurney successfully made the leap from press box to general manager’s suite — and now the sports reporters write about him.

“All of us sportswriters believe we can be the general manager. This guy is the general manager!” exclaimed Washington Post sports columnist Tony Kornheiser during one of his ESPN Radio shows in January 2004.

When he was hired as Panthers GM in 2002, Hurney inherited a team with a 1-15 record — ranking last in defense and next-to-last in offense. Two years later he led the team to an 11-5 regular season record and its first Super Bowl ever. He successfully manages an $87 million payroll and his first college draft pick as GM — defensive end Julius Peppers — was named the NFL’s 2002 Defensive Rookie of the Year.

These are hefty accomplishments for a man whose first professional job involved setting box-score type on the back sports pages of local newspapers for $75 a week.

“Marty’s background enables him to see the position of general manager from all perspectives because he has been a fan, a member of the media and a front-office executive,” says Panthers spokesman Charlie Dayton. “He is able to make balanced decisions that have greatly benefited the team.”

The Panthers’ Cinderella journey to the 2004 Super Bowl came to a heartbreaking halt when the New England Patriots kicked a field goal with four seconds left in the game. The kick gave the Pats a 32-29 victory.

During the following 2004–05 season, the Panthers attempted to defend their conference title but ran into an injury blight — 14 players were placed on injured reserve during the season. Nevertheless, only a loss in their final game kept them out of the playoffs.

School Days
During his years at CUA in the mid-’70s, Hurney kicked off his writing career by covering high school soccer and football for The Montgomery County Journal in Rockville, Md. He was soon recruited as sports editor for The Tower, CUA’s student newspaper.

“He had a nice touch,” recalls former Tower editor in chief John Koppisch, B.A. 1978, now an editor for Business Week magazine. “Our basketball team was Division I back then and we Tower reporters were always under pressure. If we got things wrong the administration would crucify us. But Marty knew his sports. And because he played football [Hurney was a guard for CUA’s then-club football team], he was great at getting along with the athletes and winning their confidence.”

A professor concurs: “I saw more potential and promise in Marty than in just about any of my former pupils,” recollects William Lawbaugh, director of journalism studies at CUA from 1975 to 1986 and Hurney’s professor for two courses. “He had ink in his blood and was hungry for bylines. He also was not afraid to revise. Some CUA prima donnas thought they got it right the first time, but Marty understood that follow-up stories are always better than hit-and-run journalism.”

In addition to being a precocious reporter, young Hurney was a Washington Redskins fanatic. A native of Wheaton, Md., he was rarely spotted on campus without that team’s maroon and gold cap. A fellow CUA football player jokingly referred to him as a “walking Redskins encyclopedia.”

When bigger newspaper opportunities came calling, Hurney left CUA prior to graduating and made a name for himself in the Washington, D.C., sports-writing scene. After a short stint with The Washington Star (which folded in 1981), he joined the staff of The Washington Times and was given the Redskins beat. That was the year the ’Skins won their first Super Bowl, which for Hurney was a dream come true.

“I never woke up and didn’t want to go to work,” he told The Washington Post in January 2004.

Walking Onto the Team
While reporting for the Times, Hurney hit it off with Redskins General Manager Bobby Beathard. The two grew so close that Beathard sometimes allowed the reporter to sit in on contract negotiations.

“He was a little different,” said Beathard of Hurney in a January 2004 interview with USA Today. “All those other [writers] were great guys, but he was more interested in sitting around talking about football than [about] the story he was trying to get. We developed a trust.”

When Hurney received a call from Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke and was offered a position as the team’s media relations assistant, the sportswriter knew Beathard had pulled some strings, according to The Washington Times.

Hurney worked with the Redskins PR department from 1988 to 1990. During this period he returned to CUA for a semester and was able to earn credits toward his CUA Bachelor of Arts in General Studies degree. (He gained his final credits from San Diego State University in 1993.)

In 1990, Hurney followed his mentor Beathard to the San Diego Chargers, where the ’Skins’ GM had accepted another general manager position. “Bobby didn’t really have a great idea of what I was going to do — I didn’t even have an office,” Hurney told The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer in June 2003.

During eight years in San Diego, Hurney advanced from being Beathard’s personal assistant to serving as a salary cap specialist responsible for the entire team’s contract negotiations. In 1998, Hurney took a job as director of football operations for the Carolina Panthers organization, and two years later he was named general manager.

Since then, Hurney has been hailed as “one of the best young executives in the league” by the chairman of the NFL Management Council, and was runner-up for the 2004 George Young NFL Executive of the Year Award.

“It’s hard to imagine,” Hurney said of his rapid rise to fame in a January 2004 interview with the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. “No one could script it.”

Not even the former writer himself. – J.H.T.

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