Bobby Hurley’s ITZ (In The Zone) Shoe Commercial (1993)

A two-time NCAA All-American at Duke and the seventh pick of the 1993 NBA Draft, Sacramento Kings rookie guard Bobby Hurley seemed to have a bright future ahead of him. However, just 19 games into a rookie season that saw him average 7.1 points and 6.1 assists, Hurley was broadsided by a car driving with no headlights. Not wearing a seatbelt, Hurley was ejected from his vehicle and landed in a ditch, sustaining a laundry list of life-threatening injuries. Among them: a severed trachea, two collapsed lungs, a fractured left shoulder blade, five broken ribs, a small compression fracture in his back, a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, a fractured right fibula and a sprained wrist.

With Hurley's career forever altered, Foot Locker's ITZ brand (short for In the Zone) never quite got the lift it desired, lasting little more than a year before Foot Locker pulled the plug.

Hurley, meanwhile, recovered from his injuries but struggled to reclaim his status as a potential impact player at the NBA level. He played 269 career NBA games, averaging 3.8 points and 3.3 assists before retiring in 1998.

In 2010, Hurley began his collegiate coaching career in earnest, spending time at Wagner and Rhode Island as an assistant coach before taking over head coaching duties at Buffalo in 2013. Hurley accepted a position at Arizona State in 2015, where he remained as of 2021.

Commercial Aired: November 19, 1993

For more on Hurley's accident: https://www.espn.com/new-york/nba/story/_/id/7582301/daniel-wieland-apologizes-nearly-killing-former-duke-blue-devils-sacramento-kings-player-bobby-hurley

Видео Bobby Hurley’s ITZ (In The Zone) Shoe Commercial (1993) канала Ryan Van Dusen