A consequential new year for Terry Curtis: Helping decide Super 7’s future and his own

 

 

It won’t take long for a couple of Alabama high school football’s most monumental calculations of 2025 to be made and both will involve Terry Curtis.

During January, the UMS-Wright legend will shape the future of two institutions — that of the Super 7 and of the coach himself.

Curtis wields considerable influence as one of the state’s greatest coaches of all time and as president of the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Central Board, which he said will meet in mid-January and discuss the possibility of the Super 7 rotating among several cities, including Mobile.

AHSAA Executive Director Heath Harmon said last week he expects to make a final decision in January but Curtis said he has not attempted to persuade Harmon to include Mobile’s Hancock-Whitney Stadium in the rotation.

“I’ll speak my mind,” Curtis said. “I’ve not heard what anybody’s going to do or anything else, per the contract that they have to give to the Alabama High School Athletic Association. Once (Harmon) tells us that, yeah, I’m a Mobile guy. I’d love for it to be in Mobile just like Birmingham people would love for it to be in Birmingham. If everything is there and everybody’s promising to do great for the kids, I’m for moving it around. I really don’t think location has all that much to do with it. I think it’s more about the kids and making sure that it’s something different.”

If Birmingham’s Protective Stadium was far superior to Hancock-Whitney Stadium, it would be easy and justifiable for the AHSAA to keep the Super 7 there but that’s not true. South Alabama’s campus stadium is just as worthy and the weather in Mobile is warmer in December than in Birmingham. It would also be unfair for Birmingham alone to reap the millions of dollars flowing into the local economy during those three days in December when Blue Maps are awarded.

Curtis said rotating the Super 7 “sounds like a good thing” but he is more interested in the best experience for the players wherever it is played.

“I think it’s good not to have it maybe every year (in the same place),” he said. “I think you kind of get complacent with it. But I don’t care where the thing is as long as the community and whoever is doing it will guarantee us that those kids are going to have a first-class experience.”

Curtis said he enjoyed the lifetime memories of playing the state championship games at Bryant-Denny Stadium and Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“I’ve done that,” he said. “I know how important everything is, from the host families taking good care of the team and making sure everything is like you want it, to the motorcycles and the police cars taking you to the stadium. The Tiger Walk or the Walk of Champions is a big deal. It’s a chilling deal. I know what these places have done to make these kids feel special and have memories that never leave. I want to make sure that continues. I really could not care less at the end of the day where the thing is as long as they’re having those kind of experiences that are above and beyond what you could ever imagine.”

After 36 seasons, not seeing Curtis on a sideline would stretch the boundaries of imagination for anybody who appreciates excellence and getting the most out of his players. Curtis, now 74, became the state’s all-time winningest coach in 2022 but since then has endured his two worst seasons at UMS-Wright (13-12). In fact, only his first two years as a head coach at Shaw in 1989 and 1990 were worse (11-9).

Curtis — who is now No. 2 all time behind Central Clay County’s Danny Horn in career victories (363 to 361), has eight Blue Maps (as does Horn) and 26 straight playoff appearances with the Bulldogs — clearly has nothing else to prove and said his decision to keep coaching or retire won’t be based on the records.

 

 

 

“It’s really not all about winning and losing,” he said. “Guys are letting go for that reason and I do know it’s important but we’re losing sight of what is important. I’m still having fun with the kids, they’re still responding to me. We’re playing with our kids, the ones that we’ve developed since kindergarten, and I feel responsible for that. I’m proud of that. I’m proud of what we’ve done and what we’ve built and how we did it. I know we were 6-7 this year but our kids, the league we’re playing in, we’re playing undersized and our kids play with great heart. They do everything right. And I tell you, it’s fun coming to work, it’s fun practicing with them, the parents are great. It’s just hard to give up something that, number one, it’s just so good and been so good to your family. If it wasn’t fun, I’d have been done.”

Curtis wants his sons involved in his deliberations during their Christmas visit and added: “If I do want to come back, I’ve got to talk my wife into it.”

His wife, Jeanie, once said Curtis cherishes coaching like nothing else.

“He loves it so much, I think he would do it from his sickbed if he had to,” she said.

Curtis will also meet with UMS-Wright Head of School Doug Barber, although it’s hard to imagine Barber or the school’s board of trustees telling Curtis to turn in his whistle.

“UMS has been good to me and my family,” Curtis said. “I want to do what they want. If they’re ready for a change or to move on, I’m ready. And maybe even if they’re not, they just don’t realize they’re not. Whenever Doug and I have a chance to sit down and talk a little bit, see what his thoughts are and pretty much what the board and their thoughts are, we’ll go from there. I’m really not that worried about it.”

There is no doubt being in Class 5A the last five seasons has crimped the Bulldogs and it’s no coincidence they haven’t reached the Super 7 since 2019, when they won their third straight Class 4A state championship. Curtis has won all eight of his Blue Maps in Class 4A and has a much higher winning percentage in Class 4A (214-35, .859) than in Class 5A (61-30, .670).

It’s difficult to accept penalizing a program for success in the proper enrollment bracket by moving it to a disproportionate one. St. Paul’s and Mobile Christian are also good examples — the Saints have won all five of their Blue Maps in Class 5A but haven’t come close in Class 6A; the Leopards were 15-0 and Class 3A champions in 2023, then went 3-7 in Class 4A this season.

Any advantage the private schools may have had in getting players without being bound by school zones has largely evaporated with the rampant transfers and recruiting in public schools, thus the competitive balance and multiplier rules aimed at private schools should be reexamined by the AHSAA.

“Football is changing,” Curtis said. “It’s already changed in college and it’s changing in high school.”

I hope Curtis decides not to change his employment status for another year. The unparalleled example and leadership of this vital man are needed in a sport that is doing somersaults.