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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > October > 22 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USBill Curry getting head start on Georgia State football
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You’re Bill Curry, and you’re highly energetic (translated: you can’t stand doing nothing). But you’re the coach of a Georgia State football team that won’t have its first kickoff until 2010.
This waiting can’t be good.
So why is Curry sounding like a 68-year-old kid on Christmas morning? Well, he already is opening some of his gifts. Most strikingly, there was last week’s tryout that drew 55 participants. Said Curry, “It was unbelievable. I didn’t think we’d have more than 10 kids. We turned a bunch away, because they didn’t get there in time to sign their disclaimers and all. So I’m going to have another tryout.
“I found a long snapper. I found a punter, and there were two or three guys who could really run and catch. Two or three big guys. And there were a whole bunch of folks that are just really fired up about football coming to Georgia State.”
There also is an upcoming pep rally, where Curry will announce his recipe for tailgating to the crowd. Plus, he wants folks to know that he will give two scholarships to walkons. He laughed, adding, “So there are all kinds of exciting, fun things going on that I’ve never done before.”
Yeah, but you’re Bill Curry, and since you left home in College Park to star at Georgia Tech during the early 1960s, you’ve always been within a chinstrap of live football games in a mighty way. You were a splendid enough NFL center to start for two Super Bowl teams. You were an assistant coach with the Green Bay Packers. You spent 17 years as the head coach at Georgia Tech, Alabama and Kentucky. You later became an ESPN analyst for more than a decade through last season.
No, this waiting can’t be good, especially with Bulldogs and Yellow Jackets prospering all around you, and with NCAA limits on what you can do at Georgia State right now. So Curry spends his current Saturdays doing what?
“I’ve had Saturdays where I have sat and charted exactly what games I’ve wanted to watch, and I’ve studied four or five football games from start to finish,” Curry said. “I’ve also, for the first time in my adult life, driven to Charlotte, N.C., to attend a fall baseball game where my 11-year-old grandson was pitching. Then I left there to go to a football game where my 9-year-old grandson was playing center for his team. And then I left there to go to a junior high game where my son — the dad of those two boys — coaches the junior high football team in his community.
“To experience that, it was one of the nicest days of my life. I’ve never been able to do that before — ever.”
Curry also travels the nation as a motivational speaker, and he has a recently published book that he will sign at Georgia Tech on Saturday before the Jackets’ homecoming game against Virginia. Still, his primary focus involves trying to find ways to make “2010” not sound so distant for Georgia State football.
For instance: Curry received permission from the NCAA to spend an entire game day with another coaching staff. That will complement what he did earlier this summer, which was send his Georgia State assistant coaches to observe Clemson’s two-a-day practices. Said Curry, “I’ve got friends who have visited with the Georgia staff. I’ve talked to (Georgia Tech coach) Paul Johnson, and he has invited us over. There just hasn’t been the right occasion for us to get together yet.”
It’s coming, though.
Just like Georgia State’s first football season is coming — slowly.
Comments
By Georgia-Florida
October 23, 2008 9:01 AM | Link to this
I expect with the amount of talent in Georgia and also the atlanta area..Georgia state with Bill Curry will become a top 25 team very shortly after 2010..with Mark Richt at UGA and now Paul Johnson at Tech.. there could be 3 excellent programs in this state and rival the 90;s when you had Florida, Florida st, and miami in the top 25 every year
By Russ
October 23, 2008 10:19 AM | Link to this
Georgia State has something that no other small college football program has and has to be a major focus on the recruiting trail. Atlanta is a magnet for young African Americans business people and Ga. State has an excellent business school. Students can build business contacts in Atlanta for the future that simply would not be possible in place like Statesboro. You can’t find that in Statesboro’s GSU, Valdosta St., Appalachian State, Furman,or any other similar small football program in the South.
This has to be used as a recruiting tool and seemed to work to get that 280 lb DT who already has his eyes set on the business world after his playing days are over.
By RidgeDaddy
October 23, 2008 2:00 PM | Link to this
My son is a freshman at GSU this fall, and he said everyone is really fired up about football starting up in 2010. He was planning on transferring to UGA, but he’s considering staying there just because of the football team. Either way, he’s definitely planning on going to their games.
Curry is the perfect choice to start that program. I’ll bet he’ll do a great job!