UMS-Wright coach Terry Curtis celebrates a 56-13 win over Headland in the first round of the playoffs in November 2022 that made him the winningest football coach in AHSAA history with 347 victories. (Call News file photo)
Former UMS-Wright coach Terry Curtis, center, and Alabama Football Coaches Association Executive Director Jack Wood, next to Curtis, show their emotion after Curtis received a lifetime achievement award Saturday in Montgomery. Also shown, from left, are ALFCA board members Jamie Riggs and Andro Williams, ALFCA President Richie Busby and former St. Paul’s and Theodore coach Steve Mask, far right. (Jimmy Wigfield/Call News)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — When lifetime achievement awards are bestowed on coaches, there is a tendency to think they can do nothing more to make their profession and their sport better.
Terry Curtis did not feel a door closing behind him Saturday upon receiving such a commendation, although his emotions leaked out when his life flashed before his eyes in a video presentation that included everything from a brown-haired Curtis wearing a Shaw T-shirt when he first became a head coach to a white-haired Curtis holding one of the eight Blue Maps he brought to UMS-Wright.
“He left high school football in Alabama much better than the way he found it half a century ago,” the narration said of Curtis.
By this time in the proceedings, Curtis and everybody at his banquet table began to feel their tear ducts about to spill.
“Coach Curtis had that something, that elusive intangible, to be able to bring a team together and convince them to play for something bigger than themselves,” the narration continued.
In admiration and respect, the fellow coaches who were elbow to elbow in the ballroom at the Embassy Suites couldn’t avoid jostling each other when they got to their feet and gave Curtis a standing ovation as he was beckoned forward to accept his plaque. He and his old friend Jack Wood, the executive director of the Alabama Football Coaches Association, stood next to each other, their faces contorted to stifle weeping openly.
Former UMS-Wright coach Terry Curtis and his wife Jeanie are shown after Curtis received a lifetime achievement award from the Alabama Football Coaches Association Saturday in Montgomery. “I probably said yes too many times to do clinics and speeches and stuff like that and it took a lot away from my wife,” he said. “But she was the perfect coach’s wife. She knew what I loved and she stayed out of the way and didn’t gripe because I wasn’t there on Saturdays and Sundays.” (Jimmy Wigfield/Call News)
“All the pictures did bring back memories of the people, players and coaches,” said Curtis, who retired last February. “Lord, they had so much to do with it, probably more than me.”
There is no doubt high school football in our state is much better because of Curtis, who is third in Alabama High School Athletic Association history with 361 career victories.
He hasn’t given up on No. 362, which might be the most important of all — getting the AHSAA’s public and private schools to bind their wounds and enter into an amenable blood pact instead of spilling metaphorical platelets.
A week ago, Curtis, the president of the AHSAA’s 15-member Central Board, watched somberly and helplessly as the board voted to drive a larger stake between the public and private schools by deciding to split them for postseason play. It might have been the only time Curtis didn’t possess “that elusive intangible to be able to bring a team together and convince them to play for something bigger than themselves.”
He addressed this when asked what he wants his legacy to be.
“(People) knew I was going to tell the truth, right or wrong,” Curtis said. “I was not always right but I was going to tell my thoughts and say what I need to say. If something wasn’t going right, I would speak up.”
Curtis felt the decision was rushed and the situation could have been improved by discussing the issues more completely over the following two years until the next reclassification. Instead, the private schools feel marginalized and want representation on the Central Board. They’re scrambling to compose their schedules and find ways to keep the smaller schools relevant, especially since tiny Glenwood School (which was a Class 3A school in the old system) must now play giant McGill-Toolen (which was a 6A). FYI, they must travel 250 miles to do so.
“If we voted again tomorrow, I’d vote the same way,” Curtis said. “I just believe schools were meant to be together, public and private. If one of them is doing wrong, punish them but keep going. They talk a lot of this stuff but nothing ever comes of it. The board voted the way they felt. It wasn’t the way I felt. My whole thing on that board has always been to do right by the kids and I’m not sure we’re doing that.”
Curtis still wants measured compromise.
“Freakin’ slow down, get to the table, have a conversation, mediation, compromise, whatever you want to call it, and see if we can come together and get this thing like it’s supposed to be,” he said. “Maybe we can’t. Maybe nobody can agree on it. But I just see too many possibilities out there that if we get the right people in the room, we can get this thing right. … When you restructure something, a lot of times you go right back to the way you were doing it. If it’s never the same again, then to me it won’t be a restructure, it’ll be a separation.”
Despite today’s environment, Curtis wishes he could coach another 50 years.
“It flew by,” he said. “Seems like it just started and here you are, been at 52 years, a head coach 36 years, and you say, ‘Wow, where’d the time go?’ I was doing exactly what I was put on Earth to do. I went to work every day and loved every day of it. The day just flew by, then the year flew by, and here we are now.”
And here he is now, full of life and wisdom. Others in power would do well to listen to him.
