By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

            When Bill Curry talks, people listen.

Macon TD Club honors trio from Northeast, Mount de Sales, and Stratford

Three schools are represented by this week’s Macon Touchdown Club players of the week.

          Northeast quarterback Nolan Ussery is the back of the week, after completing 5 of 10 passes for 128 yards and score while rushing for 186 yards and two touchdowns in the win over Bleckley County.

          Mount de Sales end Dane Frier is the lineman of the week, after racking up 12 tackles and three sacks in the Cavs’ overtime win over Stratford.

          Stratford kicker Jonathan Siegel is the special teams player of the week after averaging about 41 yards per punt against Mount de Sales.

The audience at the Macon Touchdown Club knew that. It had listened intently before.

            And for nearly 45 minutes Monday night, there was no clinking of silverware while dallying over dessert, no early departures, and no quiet side conversations.

            Curry’s voice doesn’t boom and he doesn’t necessarily have that much Southern preacher in him, but his life experiences and passion and a voice that sometimes drops to a whisper during a story lead to silence and focus from his listeners.

            Curry was, as always, alternately funny, but always heartfelt.

            Macon has been a more regular stop on Curry’s travels, with friends and business associates. His connection to the city is a long one.

            “My high school basketball team, 1959, College Park High School defeated Gainesville High School,” Curry said of the 1959 GHSA Class AA boys basketball championship game, at the Macon City Auditorium. “All the Super Bowls, the rings, all the stuff that goes with it … I mean this sincerely, and it‘s surprising, but all that pales next to something that happened  when I was a junior in high school, in Macon, Georgia, with my high school basketball team.”

            He also is connected business-wise with Jeff Battcher, who has spearheaded a local movement to increase baseball participation in the city as part of the Macon RBI (Revitalizing Baseball in Inner Cities) program.

            “He’s a brilliant guy, formerly in charge of public relations for BellSouth and Delta Air Lines,” said Curry, who also acknowledged FPD head coach Greg Moore, who was a manager at Alabama when Curry was the Tide’s head coach. “Not perhaps coincidentally, both of them were in Chapter 11 while he was handling them.”

            Curry recalled the sluggish start to his athletics career and football career as a 12 year old. He wanted to give up football to focus on his eventual destiny of pitcher for the New York Yankees, but figured he might have find alternative housing because his father wouldn’t let him quit.

            “A fate worse than death,” he said, “for short, fat, lazy Bill Curry, future New York Yankee pitcher, stuck in this ridiculous sport, where we actually screamed and smashed and ran into each other. “

            His general lack of athletic ability led him to be pushed into the center position.

            “The center, our job is to hike the ball and be run over slowly,” he said. “If you can do that, you can play football for a long, long time.”

            It was a struggle for football to overtake football in his heart and mind.

            “If I can stand 60 feet, six inches from you and throw something at you,” he said, “why would I want to run into you and risk injury?

            “It was the worst experience of my life. I have never felt so bad. I have never been so smashed and beat up, and nasty equipment. You could smell the locker room from two blocks away. The CDC could have done studies on the cultures that were developing in the air conditioning.”

            He survived, and eventually thrived, playing for legendary coaches Bobby Dodd, Vince Lombardi, and Don Shula.

            Lombardi was of transformational impact in Curry’s life, and still is, 48 years after his death, for opening Curry’s eyes, mind, and heart. Lombardi, for all of his perceived toughness, didn’t tolerate racism, or most other –isms.

            He talked of, as a coach, taking a player from south-central Los Angeles and one from north Georgia, two different backgrounds, and changing outlooks.

            “And our sick, racist culture has taught them to hate each other’s guts, and I can put them in the same locker room, and I can make them dress next to each other,” he said. “You have to teach people to hate. We don’t show up hating anybody. We have to be taught hatred.”

            If they can’t handle it, they can leave. Day by day, outlooks change, he said.  Experiences, like how you need a teammate to help you on and off with the jersey and shoulder pads, and how you’re sharing the experiences of two-a-days and injuries and sweat and a common goal.

            “Those two guys who thought they hated each other’s guts, they found out a basic thing,” he said. “Sweat smells the same on everybody. When I get busted in my mouth, my blood’s the same color as my brother. ‘I cannot hate him. I need him. We got to stick together.’”

            No, Curry wasn’t lessening the impact of winning and losing, but that both are lessons for a long life, how losing teaches how life truly works

            “Alabama’s going to lose another football game, I guarantee you,” the former Tide head coach said. “It might be 15 years from now.”

            Curry crossed paths with Nick Saban one day and asked if all this winning was getting boring.

            “He said, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe the pressure,’” Curry said, to laughter from a crowd aware that Curry went 25-10 in three years at Alabama and had a brick thrown through his office window, among other indignities for being a Tide coach not named Bear.

            “ ‘Oh, you don’t think I know?

            “ ‘OK, well, maybe you do understand. You’re the only one who understands.’”

            Curry’s life would have been so different if he had been a little better athlete and not gone through those negotiations as a 12 year old in need of a position. There was one position left.

            Coach: “Well, Bill, I guess you’re going to be the center.”

            Curry: “No s---.”

            Then came the discussions about what the skillset entailed.

            Coach: “Well, Bill, I guess you’re gonna have to learn how to hike that ball.”

            Curry: “No s---.”

            And Curry wanted to talk immediately about that necessary skill.

            “I’m going to take this really hard, oblate spheroid, 13 pounds per square inch, and I’m gonna put it on the ground, and I’m gonna pull it up right here?’” he said. “Are you kidding me? You want the ball to (be pulled) up really hard? And Tommy Fields is going to put his hands where? I don’t want his hands there.

            “We need to discuss this. This is a complex transaction we’re contemplating here.”

            The contemplating started and ended, and a so commenced a Hall of Fame career and full life in which Curry bent over and snapped to a list of Hall of Famers at nearly every stop.

            “I had the privilege of being in the huddle with them, delivering the football to them and protecting them,” he said. “And finally realizing that offensive center is the only position in all of professional sport that would have allowed Bill Curry to have a career … . So what does football teach us at its very outset?

            “That what seems to be adversity, what seems to be the worst thing that could happen to you might be the best thing that could happen to you, if you just won’t quit. If you won’t look down your nose at another human being because of the color of the skin. If you won’t look down your nose at another human being because of their national origin.

            “If you don’t make up funny names to call (people). If you don’t tell racist jokes, which are not funny, by the way, they’ve never been funny. They’re not funny. They’re killers.

            “You can’t be a racist and step in the huddle any more. …”

            The life-changing lessons he learned from Lombardi in his early days as pro remain strong five decades later.

            “You know what made our nation great?,” he asked. “Values. Values. There are five basic treasures that are valued worldwide. Every known religion, every socio-economic political system accepts these five values:

            “Honesty. Fairness. Respect. Responsibility. Compassion. Those five values are treasured and appreciated. With all screw-ups we’ve had in the United States of America, by and large, we have tried to come back to that set of values. We have tried and tried. We’ve forgotten that now how, and it will cost us dearly.”

            He recalled a drive toward Birmingham a few days after Sept. 11, 2001, when the decision had not been made yet to play college games that weekend. He stopped for gas in Attalla, Ala., and talked to the counter worker, saying he might get the call about the decision any minute, and he did. There would be no college football that weekend.

            The man got a little angry and intense, and told him that yes, there would be football that Friday night in Attalla, Ala., and it got Curry thinking.

            “This ridiculous kids game that I’ve played my entire life, it’s just a game, why does it matter so much?” Curry said. “It come to me, just a little bit at a time.

            “Because they are high school football games. Because that’s our night to huddle. America huddles on Friday night, don’t we? People sit together in those stands that never sit together any other time of the week. What do we do when somebody’s kid scores a touchdown?

            “We hug. We don’t turn to see what the pigmentation is or what the religious background is. We hug. … We become a team, if for only 3 ½ hours. … Every human heart has the potential for greatness.”