Question: What was the deal with Bill Curry??

He couldn't beat the Barn.
He brought in the guys that won the national championship.
Coach Stallings made them men, and made them a team.

Off with his head!

time_4_the_TIDE said:

I know a lot of you know more about than I do. I was still a child when he was at BAMA. I just have always gotten the impression that he is a decent man and one heckova a recruiter. My father has always said he wished they had never gotten rid of Curry. I was just wondering why??? I do not wish to tarnish Stallings in any way, but wasn't the 92' team mostly Curry's recruits? His creation talent wise? Am I wrong in looking at it that way, am I wrong entirely?

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I'm kinda like your dad...I always liked Curry when he was at Bama, but he was the first coach that was hired from outside the Bama "family", and was not accepted by a lot of people, plus , as stated already, he didn't beat the Barn. He was a good coach

Coach Bryant left Kentucky because basketball would always be king. Bill Curry ran to Kentucky because basketball would always be king.

I thought Curry was a good coach and probbaly would've been successful at Bama. Then he went to UK and forced Tim Couch to run the option and I started having doubts about his coaching abilities. However, I do firmly believe that we would never have had the problems we had with the NCAA if Curry had remained our HC.

My recollection is that he just rubbed way too many people the wrong way, Coming from Ga Tech didn't exactly help matters either.

I cannot recall a single person being anything but thankful ( at the time ) that he left. Even after posting a 10-1 regular season tally.

Just my recollection from THAT time

I'm sorry, but Curry is a 2nd rater when compared to Coach Stallings. As for the players he left, he couldn't do anything with them and Coach Stallings could and did so. JMO.

time_4_the_TIDE said:

WOW... that is a big statement. Why do you say that the NCAA problems wouldn't have happened?


Thanks for all the info posted so far guys. Just trying to learn a little here. I am a young one, not young, young but still not an old timer. I got to see 6 reg. season games in 92', the SECCG, and the Sugar Bowl in person but I don't really have a whole lot of memories before that, other than the KY game which was the first my dad ever took me to. I guess I need to get some books to read...any suggestions there would be helpful as well.

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My brother Tom Stoddard wrote a very good book about Coach Bryant's first season, called "Turnaround". He did personal interviews with many of the players from that year. He was at Bama then, and wrote sports for the Crimson-White newspaper. Later went to the AJC. It's on Amazon...

I always thought that Oliver Stone should have done a movie about the Magic Brick.

Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back... And to the left.

Tidewater said:

He couldn't beat the Barn.
He brought in the guys that won the national championship.
Coach Stallings made them men, and made them a team.

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He also brought in the guys that won a NC at Georgia Tech
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Wasn't he recommended by Ray Perkins who used to room with him when they both played for the Colts?
I think he was basically a victim of bad timing coming here when he did.

time_4_the_TIDE said:

I know a lot of you know more about this than I do. I was still a child when he was at BAMA. I just have always gotten the impression that he is a decent man and one heckova a recruiter. My father has always said he wished they had never gotten rid of Curry. I was just wondering why??? I do not wish to tarnish Stallings in any way, but wasn't the 92' team mostly Curry's recruits? His creation talent wise? Am I wrong in looking at it that way, am I wrong entirely?

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Allow me to set the record straight. First, the fact that he came from Ga. Tech was not the reason he was never accepted; rather, it was because he was a loser from Ga. Tech (think Gene Chiznik).

He was a marginal recruiter at best. Pat Dye absolutely owned him. The players we got were in spite of him, not because of him. He reportedly felt uncomfortable going into inner city areas to recruit.

He never connected with the team - they actually cheered when it was announced that he was leaving. Moreover, I recall that around 30 plus players recruited/signed by Perkins left during Curry's tenure and, this was not a weeding out the bad apples phenomenon.

Finally, he simply "didn't get it" when it came to Alabama and its preeminence in College Football. It was reported by players on the 1987 team that when they traveled to Notre Dame (and got trounced by the way), he took them on a tour as though ND was the schit while Bama was some kind of "wanna be".

I could go on but I believe that Hootie Ingram was brought in as AD for the purpose of gently removing Curry and replacing him with a real coach suitable for "the big time". I hope this helps.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYFHAvULvJ0]YouTube - Whitney Houston - One Moment In Time(Grammy Awards Live)[/ame]

Just before one of the three Iron Bowls he lost, Curry distributed cassette tapes of this song to the team. It was reported in a Montgomery Advertiser article that no longer exists online. But here is what Roger Shultz said about it:

Coach (Pat) Dye was over there telling them they had to win for their mamas and daddies and girlfriends and everybody who ever loved Auburn," he said. "We were listening to 'One Moment in Time,' by Whitney Houston.

We were all hoping we wouldn't be first one to start laughing," he said. "Then, he told us to be sure to turn it back in on Monday after the game, or it'd be an NCAA violation. The only way we'd have wanted to keep that cassette was if we'd taped over it with Metallica."

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Curry recruited some of the '92 team, but Stallings recruited a great deal of the talent as well: Antonio Langham, David Palmer, Jay Barker, Tommy Johnson, James Gregory, John Copeland, Sherman Williams, Chris Donnelly, Michael Rogers, Mario Morris, Willie Gaston, Andre Royal, Sam Shade, Jon Stevenson, Michael Proctor, Chris Anderson, Curtis Brown, Tarrant Lynch.

DL: Copeland and Gregory started
LB: Rogers started with Morris backing him up and starting in his place after the auto accident, Royal was a top LB backup
DB: Langham, Shade and Donnelly started in the secondary with Tommy Johnson being a primary backup and starting 4 games and Willie Gaston playing some.

So, 6 or 7 of the defensive starters were recruited by Stallings, as well as several key backups.

On the OL, as you can imagine, most of the players were older, so only 1 starter was a Stallings' signee: Jon Stevenson.

The WRs were statistically even between Lee and Wimbley and Stallings' signees David Palmer and Curtis Brown, though Palmer was the most important.

The QB was Barker a Stallings signee.

The RBs were Lassic 905/1034, Houston 457/483 and Stallings' signees Chris Anderson 573/916, Sherman Williams 299/?, David Palmer 164/842. So, you can see that Stallings signees were primary offensive weapons.

Also, Michael Procter, All SEC PK was a Stallings signee.

So, actually even much of the talent was signed by Stallings' staff. Of course, even more importantly they imparted a toughness that did not previously exist.

Curry was also disliked because he trashed the Bama fanbase to outsiders - this was conveyed in published reports. He ridiculed its desire for physical football and its inordinate desire for winning. This was unbecoming someone who made his name and took much money from the program. He was also supported by the vast majority of the fanbase. He has even acknowledged that. (IMO, part of ESPN's unfavorable attitude toward Bama has its genesis in Curry's time there after his firing from UK where he posted one of the worst records in program history as he did at GT, his only success being at Bama. I don't know that, it's just an opinion.)

Honden said:

My recollection is that he just rubbed way too many people the wrong way, Coming from Ga Tech didn't exactly help matters either.

I cannot recall a single person being anything but thankful ( at the time ) that he left. Even after posting a 10-1 regular season tally.

Just my recollection from THAT time

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It doesn't matter where you're from. If you lose to the Barn 4 years in a row, then after the bowl game, you should begin packing up the things in your office.

TexasBama said:

He also brought in the guys that won a NC at Georgia Tech
Posted via Mobile Device

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That is the same as saying that Saban is winning with Mike Shula's players. Bobby Ross won the NC in his 4th year at Tech.

I was a student at Tech when Curry left and I knew at the time that he wasn't cut out for the big time. At Georgia Tech at the time, winning 8 or 9 games a year was great - at Bama, it's a down year. Curry could never understand that and he felt that anyone who cared about wins and losses had their priorities all wrong.

Also, he lobbied really hard to get the Georgia Tech athletic director spot and thankfully, Tech didn't want him back either.

It's also not clear where this idea that he was a great recruiter is coming from. Curry was basically an earlier version of Chan Gailey.