A forehead-to-forehead moment from last spring’s NCAA Tournament is now standing on a sidewalk in Old Wethersfield, and it did not stay local for long.
Friends Ryan Lawlor and Jeff Bottaro, working with their families, built the scene for the town’s 31st annual Scarecrows Along Main.
Lawlor, a UConn men’s basketball superfan, suggested recreating coach Dan Hurley’s sideline clash with referee Roger Ayers after the two could not settle on a first-year design. They set the figures outside The Charles restaurant on Main Street just before dark Wednesday.
By 10:30 Thursday morning, Bottaro told CT Insider, the whole world knew about it.
One figure wears Hurley’s navy suit and glasses. The other is dressed as Ayers. Styrofoam heads from Michaels and a skin-toned burlap sack put the pair nose to nose, beside a board showing the 73-72 final and a photo of the original exchange.
The moment dates to March 30, when Braylon Mullins’s three-pointer beat Duke with less than a second left in the Elite Eight. In the celebration, Hurley pressed his forehead into Ayers’. No technical was called, and Hurley was not disciplined. He later said on the Triple Option podcast that he thought Ayers, an official he called easy to work with, was coming over for a chest bump.
Ayers said nothing happened. UConn reached the title game and lost to Michigan, 69-63.
Bottaro said fans locked onto how intense the coach gets in that frame. The entry is one of more than 170 scarecrows lining Main Street through Halloween on October 31.
