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DEL.ICIO.USTech should give Curry the job he wants
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Whenever I talk to Bill Curry, I find myself nodding and thinking, “Wow,� along the way. Just on Wednesday, he delivered riveting words about what he would do if he were, oh, say, the athletics director at Georgia Tech, his alma mater and an institution whose thought still causes his 63-year-old heart to flutter.
For instance: Listen to Curry’s view on the supposedly restrictive ways of Tech academics as it relates to the Yellow Jackets in athletics. “When you aspire to greatness, which I do, it comes down to something that goes for the classroom, and the practice field, and the game, and the court, and the track, and the pool, and for all of our athletes. It means that we have to do everything just a little bit better than the other people. That doesn’t mean that we are better than others. That doesn’t mean that we’re snooty. It just means that we have to work a little harder.�
Then Curry added, “That’s the attitude I learned when I went to Tech, and it is what has sustained me in life — whether it’s been blocking Dick Butkus or taking a calculus final. The emphasis is the same. You lay it on the line every time. You shoot for the top all the time. If you do that, sooner or later you’re going to succeed.â€?
I mean, how could those who bleed old gold and white get this lucky? They have an opportunity to have the leadership of Tech’s athletics department over the past quarter of a century go from the highly underrated Homer Rice to the visionary that was Dave Braine to a renaissance man who is the logical choice for what became a vacancy on Wednesday at the Edge Center.
I’m guessing that Curry already has hand-delivered his resume to the doorstep of Tech president Dr. G. Wayne Clough. The search for Braine’s successor is over.
Or it should be.
“I will call. I will send a resume, and then I will abide by the process that Dr. Clough certainly will instigate,� said Curry, over his cell phone from Dallas, where he is attending a coaches’ convention. He just finished his ninth year as an ESPN college football analyst. Prior to that, he had successful head coaching stints in football at Alabama and Kentucky, especially when you consider the impossible situations he inherited at both places. He also spent enough prolific years as an NFL offensive lineman to collect three Super Bowl rings.
All of that said, what sits deepest inside of Curry’s soul is his life at the Flats. After leaving his native College Park, he was a Tech student before becoming a player, an assistant coach and the head guy for a football program that rose so quickly from the dead under his leadership that he was named the ACC Coach of the Year.
More importantly, nobody associated with intercollegiate athletics holds a more honorable reputation than Curry, who once was a student at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. He is a highly sought-after motivational speaker. Not only that, for the past 43 years, he’s been married to the same woman, Carolyn, who he first proposed to in the sixth grade. And, chances are, he breaks for squirrels and flosses after every meal.
But here’s what you really want to know about a possible Curry regime at Tech: What does he think about a football program that has been nothing more than OK during this century? Curry answered quickly, with his usual decisiveness. “I believe this: I believe that we can compete at the highest level. I do not think we will ever settle for mediocrity in anything,� he said. “If we have a program, we want it to be the best that it can be. We don’t make any excuses. We want to win every time we take the field. Does that mean we’re always going to be champions? Of course not.�
Before I go further, the Curry Doctrine isn’t meant as a stiff-arm to the legacy of Braine. Curry knows that, after Braine inherited a department that Rice converted from the worst among those in big-time college athletics into a jewel, Braine made it sparkle more. Braine’s strength was in doing enough through financing and hiring to help the Jackets’ other sports beyond football and basketball prosper in the ACC.
Curry also knows that the furor over Braine’s analysis last season in the midst of Tech’s fourth consecutive finish with seven victories was unjust. Yes, Braine said that Tech likely isn’t going to win nine or 10 games a year, but Curry added, “He could have said that you’re not going to do that anywhere. It was taken out of context as if to say, ‘We’re just happy to rock along and be mediocre.’ Wrong. I believe we have to strive to be at the very top in everything that we do, and the football program is the most visible part of what Georgia Tech is.â€?
No, the most visible part is Tech’s athletics director. Thus the need for Dr. Clough to hire Mr. Curry, and right now.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Comments
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By Matthew
January 11, 2006 02:48 PM | Link to this
Just another race-baiting blog by this idiot. I’m a Marine who loves “Lord of the Rings” and I post entries on just about every blog in the world. I pay the money, and I have no life, soooo….
By Joe
January 12, 2006 11:49 PM | Link to this
Are you out of your frigging mind?? This is the guy that turned Ga Tech football around?? Yea, we went from a mediocre 6-5 to a 1-10. That’s what we have now, medicority with a Gailey coached team and we are going to turn it around to complete loser-ville. Braine’s desciple that we cannot expect to win 9 or 10 games a season. If Curry is AD, I will cut off all my ties to Tech. I had some respect for you before, Moore, you always seemed impartial and objective. Were you anywhere near Tech during Curry’s regime? The only reason Alabama hired him was because Paul Finebaum said nobody could win at Ga. Tech. Well, Ross proved them wrong. Then, Kentucky was the bigger fool for hiring him after he left just in front of the lynch mob from Tuscaloosa. Every time I seen Curry on TV calling a football, game I just about throw up. He is a conceited, pompous, righteous SOB. I’ll watch Georgia football before I’ll watch anything with him as AD.
By Other Mark
January 13, 2006 12:30 PM | Link to this
Joe - you need to check facts before you rant. If you leave Tech for UGA over Curry, so be it. But, we could do a lot, lot worse.
Curry did NOT go from 6-5 to 1-10 - it was the other way around. Once he got his players and his system, he did reasonably well, but at least his teams competed. They didn’t roll over and die like our current team. And who can forget the huge win over ranked Notre Dame in Atlanta when we did not throw a SINGLE pass? Great, great game.
He was not well-received in Alabama because he was a Tech guy and people looked at the Tech record. He was 2-19-1 in his first two years, then 29-24-3 after that. Not great, but it was building. I lived in AL during those times and the folks in Alabama began to support Curry, particularly after he took an out-manned team to the Sugar Bowl and almost beat Miami. I think he finished 11-2 that year - then left. They won a NC with that team soon after he went to KY.
As an administrator and supporter of college athletics, we couldn’t get anyone better. And his ties to ESPN may help Tech get some additional exposure - maybe even keep us from going to CA for all our bowl games.
Curry was at the Tech-Georgia game - still shows up when he isn’t working another game. His heart never left Atlanta and we should jump at the chance to get him back.
By Don
January 13, 2006 01:28 PM | Link to this
Curry had a successful head coaching stint at Kentucky? I know Terence Moore will write virtually anything, but that one takes the cake. Sports Illustrated ran an article several years ago during Curry’s last year at Kentucky that persuasively argued he had done the worst job of any coach in the history of the SEC. No coach with a record as bad as his in the first 6 years every got a 7th year, other than Curry.
But I’m for anything that gets Curry off ESPN.
By Ed Odom
January 13, 2006 02:34 PM | Link to this
One question: If Curry really thinks Tech can compete at the highest level, why did he quit Tech to go to Alabama, previously one of Tech’s most heated rivals?
By Don
January 13, 2006 05:05 PM | Link to this
More on Curry’s “success” in his 7 years at Kentucky. His total record was 23-51, just over 3 wins per season. He was 21-22 at home and 2-29 away from home. Two wins outside of Commonwealth Stadium in 7 years! And he managed the nearly impossible feat of losing 5 in a row to Vanderbilt from 1991-1995.
If that was success, what would have failure have looked like?
By HeyNow
January 13, 2006 11:23 PM | Link to this
Maybe I missed something, but I thought the job he was applying for was Athletic Director. from reading all of the posts, it would seem as if he was applying for the football job. What does a coaching record have to do with being an AD? Nothing at all. Last I check he’d be doing some hiring and firings and making sure all of the athletic programs were funded and running smoothly.