Kremer: USF Football Family Recipe Includes Sprinkle of Curry Powder

At home, he is called dad. At work, he is called coach.

Joe Curry is 35 years old. He and his wife, Holly, have two sons they call their own, Connor, 4, and Cooper, 2, and nearly 100 more they include in their extended family.

Curry is preparing to begin his second season as the head football coach at the University of St. Francis. He uses the game as a platform to teach life lessons to all of his boys and casts the image of a father figure when he is around his beloved Saints.

He sees his two jobs—that of dad and coach—as one in the same in many respects.

“You’re in charge of developing young men,” Curry said. “Our ultimate goal is to get them ready to be productive citizens. So, it’s a lot like with my own children. You try to bring them up the right way. You try to show them the right things to do.

“It’s no different than with a football team.”

Except for this: Curry’s players will leave him after four years. Some will stay in contact. Others will drift farther and farther from the nest. His children will be with him for the rest of his life. He is thankful for that, just as he is thankful for the opportunity to go back to school himself.

Curry learned as much about himself during his first season as USF’s head coach as he did about his Saints. His team—checking in with a 6-5 record—had a good season, not a great season. His coaching mimicked that of his team—he was good, not great.

“When you get to become a head coach, you think you have the perfect formula ready to make your team become the most successful,” Curry said. “I was no different. I thought I had it. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s a constant process.

“There are constant tweaks and constant things that have to happen because every year is different, every person is different, every day is different. So, one of the things we really harped on this year—I was kind of a, I don’t want to say an ignorant head coach, but I was a naive head coach last year in thinking, ‘Hey, we’re preseason ranked No. 7. Everybody thinks we’re pretty good. It’s just going to happen.’

“And, looking back on it, I started to see, ‘OK, we were pretty good.’ But we neglected to focus in on and talk about the process of winning, the process of being successful. It’s not just as easy as getting up every day and being a winner. You have to work toward that. That’s effort, that’s accountability. You’ve got to have a great attitude for that.

“All those key things I learned and we’re trying to incorporate into our team, and we did it this past spring. For the most part, the kids have been receptive. It’s giving the kids more empowerment in the program to take it as theirs. This isn’t Joe Curry’s team. This is their team here at the University of St. Francis.”

And Curry knows how important that ideal is for any player because he grew up walking in the same shoes as many of his Saints. He played high school ball at Aurora Central Catholic and was coached by his father, Mike, an Illinois High School Coaches Association Hall of Famer. Mike won a couple state titles in the early-1980s at ACC and spent 37 years in the high school ranks.

Joe first attended Indiana State and later transferred to USF. He played football for the Saints during the Mike Slovick-Mike Feminis coaching era. Then, he hooked on as an assistant coach under former USF coach and current North Carolina State assistant Mike Uremovich.

Curry has worked tirelessly since Uremovich left to keep the Saints moving toward the top of the NAIA heap. More and more, he realizes the importance of securing a “buy-in” from everybody in the USF camp, starting with his boys, the current cast of Saints.

“Like it or not, the more the kids feel that the program is theirs, the more it means to them and the more they react to it in a positive manner, rather than doing it because the head coach told you to do it,” Curry said. “That’s been a big change for us, one that in the spring really helped and I hope we can build on that. And I hope that our older guys that are here will instill that in the younger guys for the future.”

When he needs advice or a shoulder to lean on, Curry naturally turns to his family. His wife and children are there for him—as is his father. Mike Curry has worked as an assistant with the Saints for three years now and brings the level-headed voice of experience into the USF football meeting rooms.

“Back when I was growing up, it was just a way life,” Curry said. “Friday night was football night. Everybody—the whole family—would be up there watching football. So, I grew up around it, not only the sport, but around a head coach who was in charge of all those things that I’m doing now and kind of got to learn first-hand what it took and what the expectations are, all those different things.

“I always knew I wanted football to be a part of my life. I knew I wanted to play college football first. Then, when I was playing college football, it’s like, ‘Yeah, I want to be a coach.’ But I really didn’t know how to do it, how to get into it, and had to get some advice from some people and earn my bones in the business.”

Mike and Joe—father and son—have pushed past Game Day critiques and delved more lately into the best ways of going about the job—that of being a dad and a coach.

“You’re dealing with kids,” Curry said. “So, I’ve bounce back and forth with him on what the best way to get a kid’s attention is, what the best way to get the most out of your teams is and what the best way is to get the most out of your staff, more importantly.

“For me, I have a great staff. You’re only as good as your staff. Yeah, I’m the head coach. And, yeah, my name goes by the W’s and the L’s, but at the same time if it wasn’t for those guys that I have working for me it wouldn’t be possible. And my dad has really given me great insight on how to deal with the staff."

They call that passing the torch.