Kristy Curry: Ten Years in Tuscaloosa

Reaching 10 years as a head coach is a significant milestone.

Coaches do not simply get longevity with out cause; it takes a mixture of on-court success and administrative assist (and possibly even some luck) to keep up the place for a decade or extra.

Understanding that is smart when wanting on the College of Alabama ladies’s basketball program. Earlier than the 2022-23 season started, just one head coach held the place because the program’s inception in 1974 – Rick Moody, who coached from 1989 to 2005.

Whereas Moody’s title is hooked up to a lot of teaching accolades, he’s not the one one with a decade or extra on the helm of the ladies’s basketball program. He’s joined by the lady who’s been in cost for the final 10 seasons:

Kristy Curry.

“It means quite a bit,” Curry stated about reaching the milestone. “Love making [Tuscaloosa] dwelling. It has been lots of enjoyable to work on rebuilding this system again, and to see the steps that we have moved this system ahead is absolutely particular.”

Curry was formally launched as the pinnacle coach of Alabama on Could 16, 2013, however what’s most fascinating about her arrival to Tuscaloosa, is that it virtually got here a lot earlier. Earlier than attending to that, nevertheless, let’s briefly evaluation Curry’s teaching travels.

In 1999, Curry earned her first head teaching job at Purdue, turning into the primary ladies’s basketball coach in NCAA historical past to inherit a nationwide championship-winning group. After a profitable stint there, Curry grew to become the successor to Corridor of Fame coach Marsha Sharp at Texas Tech in 2006. After seven seasons in Lubbock, Curry grew to become the pinnacle coach at Alabama.

The curiosity that received Curry to hitch the Crimson Tide befell whereas she was at Texas A&M, however the unique curiosity got here throughout her time with the Boilermakers.

“Alabama really known as me throughout my time at Purdue, and I had stated no,” Curry stated. Then I am going to Texas Tech for seven years and ‘Bama known as again.

“The second time round, I could not say no.”

The primary time Alabama known as Curry, she was solely in her third yr at Purdue, the group simply made to the Last 4 and had her first baby, so to her, the timing wasn’t fairly proper. However Curry adopted this system and at all times had respect for its educational commonplace in addition to its athletics, and when she acquired one other name whereas at Texas Tech, the timing was proper.

Curry has lastly taken over the reins for Alabama ladies’s basketball, however in contrast to the opposite two applications she’s led as a head coach, the Crimson Tide was a dropping program. From the flip of the century to Curry’s hiring, Alabama had solely three successful seasons. Including insult to damage, Moody’s legendary tenure ended with back-to-back dropping seasons, and this system went by means of two coaches in eight seasons after solely having one coach for the prior 16 seasons.

Alabama’s program has additionally struggled mightily in convention play. In the identical timeframe, the Crimson Tide by no means gained greater than 5 SEC video games, together with an 0-14 slate within the 2006-07 season, and a three-year stretch the place the group solely gained three video games in three years.

After Curry’s first season, the group amassed seven SEC victories, probably the most because the 2001-02 season, whereas concurrently breaking lengthy dropping streaks in opposition to Kentucky and Georgia. The second season ended with double-digit victories for the primary time since 2010. 12 months 3? An look in a postseason match for the primary time in 5 years.

“It has been a pleasure simply to see the progress,” Curry stated in regards to the success early in her tenure. “You are typically judged on wins and losses, however early in our time right here, it was simply the progress we made day-after-day with the little victories.

“It has been actually enjoyable to look at the place we have been and the place we’re at now.”

Curry has continued to show this system round, from a number of 20-win seasons because the Nineteen Nineties, to lastly making a return to the NCAA Event within the 2020-21 season, the primary time since 1998-99. She stated making the match was most likely her most favourite reminiscence.

“At every place you will have a very particular second, however at Alabama, it is positively seeing the title known as and understanding that we received again to the match,” Curry stated.

The group nonetheless has a methods to go when it comes to turning into one of many elite applications within the nation, however Curry has this system heading in the right direction.

Off the court docket, she’s grow to be deeply concerned with the neighborhood, main a lot of initiatives to assist the residents of Tuscaloosa. Throughout Curry’s tenure, Alabama ladies’s basketball has partnered with Habitat for Humanity, Stroll to Finish Alzheimer’s, DCH and VA hospitals, and extra. 

One of many program’s most up-to-date neighborhood service efforts is Hoops, Heels, and Excessive Tops, a program devoted to attach ladies locally.

“There may be nothing extra highly effective than when ladies assist ladies, and I feel simply a possibility for our younger women to spend time with very profitable mothers and professionals in our neighborhood,” Curry stated.

She introduced the concept from her time at Texas Tech, and the occasion did very properly, however that is only one instance of how Curry has impacted these round her.

Curry has been a collegiate head coach for over 20 years, and he or she’s had the chance to construct an in depth teaching tree, from Brooke Stoehr at Louisiana Tech, to Alesha Robertson at San Angelo State, to Shereka Wright at UT-Arlington.

Wright performed for Curry throughout her time at Purdue, however her phrases are a powerful indication of any participant or coach below Curry’s tenure: a supportive chief.

“I realized lots of worthwhile classes so far as with the ability to join with younger individuals,” Wright stated. “Her gamers love taking part in for her, and I received an opportunity to look at it up shut each as a participant and as an assistant coach on her workers.”

Wright additionally stated she nonetheless contacts Curry to this present day, simply to examine in additional than something. And Curry nonetheless reaches out to quite a bit her former participant who’ve grow to be coaches.

“Probably the most comical factor proper now could be they’re going to go ‘Ooh now I perceive extra of the belongings you tried to inform us as a participant or an assistant’,” Curry stated. “I simply attempt to proceed encouraging them and supporting them.”

Curry’s additionally coached her fair proportion of proficient gamers throughout her time at Alabama;

• Ashley Knight led the SEC in blocks in 2016-17
• Hannah Cook dinner graduated in 2018 within the top-five of made 3-pointers for a profession
• Ashley Williams ended her profession fifth in complete rebounds

Her most profitable participant, nevertheless, is Jasmine Walker, who’s presently taking part in for the LA Sparks of the WNBA.

“To see the place she was when she first received right here, it is superior,” Curry stated. 

Walker is one other individual Curry nonetheless talks to presently, as the previous No. 7 choose is taking part in in Puerto Rico in the course of the offseason. Her former coach is happy with her basketball success, what Curry stated she is most happy with is how Walker left Alabama with two levels.

“I am most likely as happy with that as I’m her basketball profession,” Curry stated.

Teachers have at all times been a precedence for Curry, and it reveals as her group often maintains a 3.0 or higher every educational yr.

Nonetheless, Curry stays humble throughout all the tutorial and athletic success of her gamers and coaches previous and current. And whereas it in the end goes again to the gamers, there may be one fixed that is helped assist their efforts:

Kristy Curry.