Words from Bill Curry
Before he was a coach, Bill Curry was himself coached by some of the legendary men of the game.
Here are his thumbnail thoughts on those who shaped him and on the man he eventually became:
On Bobby Dodd (Georgia Tech): He was obsessed with education because he never got his diploma. He loved me unconditionally, and I still don't know why. He was incredible.
On Vince Lombardi (Green Bay): Very complex. I couldn't understand him because he wasn't Bobby Dodd, and I couldn't forgive him for not being Bobby Dodd.
(After being released by the Packers through the expansion draft in 1967, Curry had criticized Lombardi's methods. But the two later reconciled during a hospital visit as Lombardi was dying of cancer): I took his hand and I started stammering. I said, "Coach, I said some things I wish I hadn't, but I came here today to say that you have meant a lot in my life." He squeezed my hand and said, "You can mean a lot to mine if you pray for me." What great people of faith do is forgive you when you least deserve it, and that's what he did.
On Don Shula (Baltimore): Coach Shula gave me chance after chance after chance. He won more games than anybody in history with a bunch of guys nobody wanted. If he ever decided he believed in you he would never give up on you. It made you want to die for him.
And, finally, Curry on Curry: I've tried to be caring. And faithful, both in the area of faith and to people. And loyal, to a fault. I haven't always been any of those things, those were recent developments. I came by them the hard way.
I would like to be remembered as somebody who loved people and somebody who meant what he said and would be willing to confess when he was wrong. That was very difficult to learn.
Georgia State’s players split and dressed for Bill Curry’s last game in two separate, cramped rooms in the hockey rink behind Maine’s Alfond Stadium. The coaches prepped themselves in the only other place available, a restroom. Glorious endings are not easily born from such settings.
Still, on this Saturday afternoon when Curry called the players together to deliver the final pregame speech he would ever give, he asked them to rescue something grand from a bleak season.
He reminded them of how far they had come in lockstep with a program that didn’t have helmets or pads or a decent practice field just four years ago. And then, with his last coachly breath, he attempted to inflate their pride for one more game.
“When people look back at our program, I want them to remember this day because it is never too late to give your best. It is never too late to stick together,” Curry told his guys.
“Look around this room. Not only do I love you, but you love each other. This is the best bunch of friends you’ll ever have in your life. There is not anybody else who will understand what we’ve been through together. That is such a gift.”
The team joined hands at the end and repeated after Curry: “I will not let you down. I will not let you down. I will never let you down.”
It is about here one should be inserting details of how the Panthers stormed from their modest quarters, routed Maine and then hoisted their 70-year-old coach on their shoulders, carrying him into a victorious retirement.
Ah, but there was no room in Curry’s last season for the cliche of winning one for the old man. Maine scored first — just four minutes into the game — scored often and overwhelmed Georgia State 51-7. The 1-10 Panthers saved some of their worst football for the finish and to the end left the impression of a very good man going out on a very bad season.
The span of Curry’s career is such that in one lifetime on the field he both played in the first Super Bowl and, this season, dismissed a player for sending Tweets that insulted the Georgia State athletic director.
Vince Lombardi never had to deal with Twitter, but it was the fate of one of his acolytes to have to clean up the litter of 140 careless characters. Coaching hasn’t changed all that much over the generations — there are just a few more absurdities around the margins.
The issues of Curry’s last season stretched far beyond social media, into the face-to-face hazards of tackle football. Saturday underscored each one. Georgia State had lost its most dynamic offensive player, running back Donald Russell, to a sprained knee earlier this season. Wide receiver Jordan Giles was long gone with a shoulder injury. The defensive line was chewed up by injury. The steep competition within the Colonial Athletic Association was a revelation (and it’s on to the Sun Belt Conference next year).
One of the Panthers more dependable players was punter Matt Hubbard, who had to prove his worth with distressing regularity.
Curry stockpiled a huge reserve of good will during his 20 years coaching and an 11-year stint as a broadcaster and often-tapped source for opinions on how college football should behave. He had coached at the highest levels — Georgia Tech, Alabama, Kentucky. He had played for giants — Bobby Dodd at Tech, Lombardi in Green Bay, Don Shula in Baltimore. He had collected awards for his sense of service, hefty ones named after Amos Alonzo Stagg and Gerald Ford.
He could cash in none of it on the pitiless football field. Before his final game at the Georgia Dome last week, Curry stood by while it was announced the team’s locker room would be named after him. Then he manned the sidelines while Old Dominion rolled over his Panthers 53-27.
Taking the Georgia State position, baking a program from scratch at a school short on spirit and athletic identity was an unlikely assignment for someone with Curry’s resume. Losing every home game, often in front of four-figure crowds, was an even more implausible way for such a fellow’s final season to play out.
It was suggested once to Curry that some would label him the St. Jude — patron saint of hopeless causes — of college coaching. He is a well-read sort, wired to understand such analogies if only to keep up with his wife (Carolyn collects advanced degrees like a navel collects lint).
Coaching is a hard job, but Curry’s assignments always seemed to come with added difficulties (like the rebuilding he did at Tech in the 1980s and the building he did up the street at Georgia State). But he would have none of that St. Jude nonsense: “That would be an easy thing to do, but no, the causes aren’t hopeless. What bothers me at Georgia State is I’m not going to be here long enough to keep my hand on the helm until we get it where it should be. But somebody will, and it will be successful.”
One scene from early September defined the stubbornness Curry brought to his final season.
A payday game against Tennessee was down to its final minute. The Volunteers had the ball and a 51-13 lead and were taking a knee in an effort to mercifully kill the clock. Yet Curry kept ordering timeouts, prolonging the inevitable, drawing lusty boos from those Volunteers fans who hadn’t departed early.
Moments later, as he sat on a raised platform, preparing to begin his postgame news conference, Carolyn passed by and softly patted his leg. He took her hand and kissed her fingertips.
Then Curry launched into a lively explanation for spending those last timeouts in such a seemingly fruitless manner: “We’re going to use everything we got, we don’t ever quit. If we have a chance to get it back with four seconds, we can try to score another one because that’s what we are. When we learn that it will also matter when we’re down by six and have a chance to get it back.
“So if the fans were late getting to their cocktail party, I’ll apologize to them. But we’ll do it every single time. That’s teaching a lesson to the guys, that we never give up.”
At the postgame conference following the Old Dominion loss, Curry wasn’t about to begin negotiating terms of surrender. Although he wasn’t ruling out the need for some divine assistance: “We have one more game, and I pray that we play our best game.”
Instead, every prayer for one last stirring game went unanswered. And he left Saturday with three time outs in his pocket.
In a place far from home, where darkness falls early, Curry trudged back to the makeshift locker room in the gloom of a Maine November afternoon.
In the hallway that served as a meeting place, the coach’s last act with his team was to comfort it.
“We all know this is a better football team than showed anytime this year,” he told his players postgame. “My job is to help you find you potential, develop it and get you to commit to a cause greater than yourself, which in this case is this football team. You’ve done your part.
“The next step is to become a great football team and I know you can do it and I know you will. (Georgia State) will find somebody who will do a great job coaching. I’ll always love you, always respect you, always admire you.”
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