George Curry pulled into the vacant Central Columbia High School parking lot on one of those summer days in 2009 when you can see the heat waves rising off the asphalt. The Berwick coaching legend stopped in to visit one of his former players coaching there. Curry just had a little problem. Something briefly paralyzed him. Something visceral, like part of his insides was being torn out. Curry couldn't move. He sat there from a distance as his eyes welled up. Fighting back tears, it hit him.
He missed coaching—and it marked the first time in over 40 years that he wasn't.
George Curry, shown during his stint
as head coach at Wyoming Valley West.
File photo by George M Powers
Friday night marked something Curry thought he would never be doing again—standing on a
Berwick (Pa.) sideline. Coaching.
When previous Bulldogs' coach Gary Campbell resigned on June 4 to take a position back home in Massachusetts, the Berwick School Board turned to the retired 68-year old who's won six PIAA Class AAA state titles and more games (414) than any football coach in Pennsylvania high school history.
A moment before he saw his team rip through host Crestwood, 48-21, Friday night, Curry closed his eyes and for a short instance, it was as if he never left.
"I was a nervous wreck going into that opener," admitted Curry, who took the Berwick job on June 11 on an interim basis in lieu of Campbell's sudden departure. "I had a lot of young kids on the line, and they all responded. We had 347 yards in the first half, and for a new team running a new system, it went smoother than I thought. I haven't coached in a while [four years] and going back to the school where you were for 35 years, I felt like I never left."
Curry's achievements are unrivaled. He's remained the standard for every high school coach in Pennsylvania. His 414-93-5 career mark is unprecedented and his victory total, which included Friday's opener against Crestwood, may never be surpassed.
In Curry's initial tenure at Berwick, his teams won three mythical national championships (1983, 1992, and 1995) and six Class AAA state championships (1988, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997). Perhaps no team was better than his 1992 team, led by all-everything quarterback Ron Powlus, a 1993 Berwick graduate who went on to play for Notre Dame and is now the quarterback's coach at Kansas.
Powlus made sure he took the time to call his former coach Friday afternoon before Curry's return. Powlus still refers to Curry as "coach." For the many that played for Curry, that distinction doesn't seem as if it will ever change.
"It didn't surprise me Coach Curry came back," Powlus said a few days before Berwick's opener. "Coach Curry is a coach through and through. Coach has a tremendous football mind; he really thinks the game very well and is a tremendous strategist. I think the biggest lesson I learned from Coach Curry is make your offense and defense match your personnel.
"He's gone from a two-back offense, to throwing it with an empty backfield when I was there for three years. We ran a spread offense in the early-1990s before anyone even knew what it was. Coach Curry was always innovative like that. He was always trying to learn and create mismatches based on the personnel. The other thing is that some coaches are negative and yellers, but Coach Curry is such a positive person. Oh, he can get on you if you do something wrong, but you can't help but come away with positive vibes that make you willing to work. His saying that I still hold today from Coach is work hard and good things will happen. The town is lucky to have him back. As a former player, I'm thrilled, and I know the town is thrilled as well."
But Curry also coached at a different time. Players today, Curry admits, are different. A big concern in the back of Curry's mind was how would they take to his old-school methods? Though it seems age has softened him, and a scare in beating cancer has given him a greater perspective, Curry is very much a firebrand.
That hasn't changed. Either has his demanding ways.
"Kids are different today, but the nice part of it is that I took this job on an interim basis, and I want to do things my way," Curry said. "I didn't know these kids. I had to put in a whole new system, and I didn't have a lot of time to do it. When you coach a team through the years, you develop a certain type of mentality. If you're not tough, you won't be around here very long. My goal is trying to get them to think the way a champion thinks. The biggest problem is getting everyone on board with the nomenclature. I still believe kids today want structure and discipline, and so far, these kids have reacted very well."
Then Curry laughed again. It's grown to a point where now he's coaching the grandchildren of players who once played for him—including his own grandson, junior C.J. Curry, the Bulldogs' starting quarterback. The kids showed up August 13, the first day of practice, already clean cut and shaved. The fathers who had previously played for Curry prepped their sons as to what to expect.
They knew to arrive at 8 a.m. sharp that first Monday practice. No dangling earrings. No cell phones. No iPods.
"I'm not the long-range answer, and I don't want to be, but I do want to get these kids to think the right way," Curry said. "There are some great teams out there and we when played Class AAA in the 1990s, the Class AAA had the best schools in the state."
The Bulldogs should be good again this year, after going 9-3 overall with a conference championship in 2011. But an inexperienced offensive line will need to congeal fast if Berwick expects to play with Class AAA heavyweights like Archbishop Wood (Philadelphia, PA).
In fact, Curry lost his best lineman, senior Gavin Harter, out with an injury and not expected back until mid-season, and started three sophomores and a junior against Crestwood.
Curry took about three seconds to inhale the Crestwood victory, then the old coach in him re-emerged on the return ride home … "It was nice, a packed crowd and a lot of my former players were there, and to hear from Ron before the game was great, but after it was over, that's the way it was," he said. "Enjoy the win—as long it takes you from the field to the locker room, and on my way home, I'm thinking about Pottsville already."
Berwick's next opponent.
