Terry Curtis does not get any probabilities in successful online games. When he was the head coach at Murphy, he after created the group buses transform all-around when they created a completely wrong turn at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, go back to the school and commence more than. (John O’Dell/Phone News)
UMS-Wright Mentor Terry Curtis has a stash of fortunate rocks and cash (heads up only) to ward off undesirable luck. “I do not phone them superstitions,” Curtis mentioned. “I just really do not want to acquire a likelihood.” (Jimmy Wigfield/Contact Information)
By JIMMY WIGFIELD
As scrupulous as he is, UMS-Wright coach Terry Curtis thinks in coverage and not just life, auto and homeowner’s coverage.
He designs for all contingencies to guard versus shedding a soccer recreation and his policy to stay away from it consists of some unorthodox riders:
- A seat in assistant coach Eddie Roberts’ truck guiding the group bus.
- Scorching peanuts from A&M Peanut Shop downtown.
- Assorted meats, like grilled fish and black-and-white chicken.
- Broccoli.
- Area peas.
- Brown rice.
- A banana milk shake.
- Rocks discovered at or in the vicinity of Cooper Stadium.
- Coins found heads up.
- Twenty-5-yr-aged sneakers.
- Twenty-1-calendar year-aged boxer shorts with footballs on them.
“I really do not simply call them superstitions,” Curtis reported. “I just don’t want to acquire a prospect.”
The Lucky Charm strategy (Curtis Assists Steer clear of a Actual Mess) has definitely worked properly sufficient for Curtis to have won 348 game titles and eight state championships. He is not towards getting calculated challenges on the field but off it? Don’t tell him about the deductible or, in this case, the delectable.
He and his spouse, Jeanie, have a longstanding custom (Shhhh! superstition) of deciding upon a cafe just before the year opener. She phone calls it their day night time, each individual Wednesday ahead of a Friday match.
“As extensive as we are successful, we have to hold likely again to the similar position each Wednesday and he has to try to eat the exact meal each time,” she mentioned. “If we lose, we have bought to go someplace else. I know this previous time, we went to Baumhower’s 13 straight Wednesdays. They realized to bring about my tea. Terry normally acquired the black-and-white chicken with broccoli and brown rice.”
Mrs. Curtis created a supreme sacrifice during one particular of the Bulldogs’ 4 fantastic seasons.
“We went 15- and went to P.F. Chang’s at the shopping mall and absolutely nothing in opposition to P.F. Chang’s — they are the very best persons — but that’s not my favorite kind of foodstuff,” she claimed. “I’d just try to eat a minor bit off Terry’s plate for 15 straight weeks.”
A different sacrifice was produced in the 15- point out championship time of 2005 by Billy Dial, the father of UMS-Wright star tight end Preston Dial. The Dials joined the Curtises at Big Time Diner and proceeded on yet another 15-week gastronomic tour.
“They went with us to consume the to start with 7 days at Significant Time Diner and we received, so they experienced to arrive each 7 days too,” Curtis mentioned. “I constantly received the grilled fish, industry peas and a banana milkshake. 1 time I set in my common order and they claimed they could not make me a banana milkshake mainly because they have been out of bananas. Billy got up and went to the grocery store and bought some bananas so they could make it.”
Dressing for success
During the walkthrough the day right before a recreation, Curtis and coach Stacy Harrelson will have to roll footballs with precision, according to former assistant coach Keith Powell.
“It’s this small match, like they’re rolling pennies or nickels,” Powell mentioned. “The closest soccer to the line wins.”
When dressing for a match, Curtis insists on sporting the identical pair of boxer shorts he has owned for 21 yrs, the exact same pair of footwear he has laced up for 25 yrs and the similar socks, though all those are purchased new before each season.
“Those outdated footwear he wears, I feel he had them at Murphy,” Roberts stated. “The soles are coming off. We convey to him we can buy him some new types but he desires to put on the aged kinds.”
The same is legitimate of his boxer shorts.
“Probably 21 several years back, I gave him a pair with footballs on them and he just experienced to don them each and every Friday evening,” Jeanie Curtis mentioned. “They’re in shreds now from all the washing and drying but he has to don them the night time of the video game only. That is 21 a long time. Even if I located him some new kinds, he would not wear them.”
Curtis is keeping out hope his aged boxers will not be brief.
“They’re additional than raggedy,” he claimed. “The total back again close is torn out and the elastic is gone. Jeanie has to sew them up. I really don’t know how significantly extended they’re likely to last.”
Consume, approach, rest
Curtis’ administrative assistant, Molly Nordmann, claimed he follows a methodical regimen on sport working day, setting up with breakfast with the players’ fathers, then moving on to the lower-college pep rally to converse with the kids, which include people who will just one day engage in for him.
“After that, he’ll make out his enjoy sheets and shade them all distinctive techniques — some plays are environmentally friendly, some are pink, some blue, some yellow,” Nordmann explained. “I near the doorway and inform men and women they can not go in there. He’ll put the engage in sheet in his pocket and I have in no way found him pull it out.”
At lunch with his former gamers, Curtis eats the similar factor each and every Friday as extensive as the Bulldogs are successful. Fortunately for the existing players, their pregame meal improvements week to week at household.
But on the highway, the menu stays the exact — hamburger steak, mashed potatoes, string beans and a roll.
A several several hours before a dwelling match, Curtis generally requires a nap.
“I get nervous, guaranteed,” he claimed. “Sometimes I’ll sleep and often I’ll go by means of the play sheet in my brain. It is about an hour and a 50 {b037f4174007d005f1ab9cb8d1aafc050eb5d7e8c07298e478acc145e540df6a} to get my thoughts straight.”
But he need to be woke up punctually at 5:20 p.m. so he can get all set.
‘We’re starting up over’
Yet another Blessed Allure evaluate is Curtis remaining off the team bus on away game titles, in its place keeping guiding the bus though becoming chauffeured in Roberts’ truck. And some audibles are appropriate on the industry but not on the highway, as Roberts uncovered when driving Curtis to a Murphy video game at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
“He experienced a sure route he had to choose from Murphy to Ladd,” Roberts stated. “We experienced no escort. All those buses went down to the Loop and then Government and then went to Virginia Street but they got down there nearly to the stadium and took a erroneous flip and he mentioned, ‘We’re going to turn these buses about and go back again to Murphy and commence more than.’”
If UMS-Wright wins a highway playoff sport and Curtis attends the regular coaches’ assembly the subsequent morning in Montgomery, he keeps Roberts’ truck and Roberts rides the bus back.
“He’s obtained a massive, ol’ Chevy,” Curtis explained. “It’s a great truck. Appears like he’s often acquired a new truck.”
But it does not often search new. Just one yr, immediately after a playoff get at Dadeville, assistant mentor Gerald “Bullit” Jones was driving Curtis in Roberts’ truck down a narrow curvy street to the coaches’ assembly in Montgomery and an 18-wheeler tore off a mirror.
And it does not always smell new since Curtis enjoys to eat fried hen on the way again from a highway match.
“He’ll even question me, ‘Eddie, you want your hen?’” Roberts reported. “The following working day, he’s got that greasy rooster all around my truck. I have to get a towel.”
Curtis mentioned he stopped driving the bus as a head coach mainly because the gamers had been too quiet thinking about the video game ahead and he wanted them to chill out.
“If I’d listen to just about anything heading on, I’d think they were not prepared to play, so the coaches deterred me from using the bus,” he stated.
Peanuts, rocks and coins
After he’s at a activity, Curtis is uncomplicated to come across due to the fact he eats extra peanuts the more substantial the Bulldogs’ guide grows and his pockets fill with shells to protect any person who has an allergy.
“He has a peanut dependancy,” former star huge receiver Brandon Gibson explained. “When I performed, if you followed the trail of shells, you’d obtain him.”
The path began when a previous sheriff’s deputy who escorted the group on absent games introduced Curtis some sizzling peanuts from A&M Peanut Shop downtown. Right after he retired, Ross Pritchard, whose son was a manager on the team, assumed the responsibility and ongoing following his son graduated right up until he experienced a unexpected coronary heart attack and died in August 2018.
At the funeral services, Pritchard’s brother-in-regulation handed Nordmann an envelope with a donation to proceed acquiring the peanuts, which Nordmann’s partner, Rudy, now delivers.
“It’s unfortunate when football year is more than due to the fact we have no extra peanuts,” she reported.
Throughout games, Curtis also carries a fortunate rock discovered at or in the vicinity of Cooper Stadium just right before the time starts, a different Blessed Allure offered by Rudy Nordmann.
“Rudy found a rock on the football subject and gave it to Terry and he set it in his pocket,” Molly Nordmann claimed. “Every year, Rudy has to give him a rock in advance of the to start with match. It has to occur from or in close proximity to the industry. But our subject is so properly-retained, it’s having really hard to obtain rocks there.”
Just one time, his mates and aides panicked prior to a recreation mainly because they could not locate a rock that fell from Curtis’ pocket and performed a painstaking lookup for it in the hour just before kickoff.
Curtis also scoops up coins if they are observed heads up tails-up cash are addressed like poison ivy and not touched.
All people rocks and coins from each calendar year relaxation on a perch behind Curtis’ desk, silent sentinels to ward off anything at all that may well obstruct accomplishment.
