UMS Wright head football coach and athletic director Terry Curtis announced his retirement from coaching recently after 52 years, eight state championships and 361 head coaching victories. The following is an open letter to Coach Curtis from the high school football coaches of the state of Alabama.
Dear Terry,
We know that time marches on and sooner or later everyone has to leave this great game that we all learned to love in our youth. We knew the day would come soon when the sun would rise and you would no longer be the coach at UMS Wright. But we can't help but feel a little bit of sadness today. It doesn't happen very often, but our profession is losing one of its icons, who has left this thing called high school football better than the way he found it many years ago.
Most of us marvel at your win total and can only imagine what it would be like to be at a school with success like you have achieved. But most don't know that you spent many years as an assistant coach at Murphy, watching and waiting. You learned from some of the best during the Panther hey days, both coaches and players alike. You learned the game and you learned how to get the most out of your players.
When your head coaching journey started at Shaw High School, you took a team that had only one winning season in 10 years and gave them success. By your third season, you had them in the semi finals. You had that "something", that intangible to be able to bring a team together that all of us coaches recognize but find hard to define. Even more difficult to duplicate. When you returned to Murphy, success followed and you become one of the most respected coaches in our state. Your years at UMS-Wright were littered with great wins and championships. Many of us watched you from a distance, looking for that something that could make us winners as well.
Everyone wants to model success, but what we finally learned to appreciate is that your greatness can not evaluated by the blue maps in your trophy case.
So today we want to thank you for teaching us about people. For years you told everyone that would listen that we can all be competitive, but when the game ends, we can still be friends. We can all help and encourage each other because this great game we call football can have some real highs but some devastating lows. You reminded us that coaching football should be a brotherhood.
Thank you for promoting the game, for being president of the coaches association and caring about the future of high school football. You talked about issues and listened to people's opinions, especially when they were different from your own. We live in a day when many have been taught to look out for themselves first, but you always put the good of the game above that.
As you spent years on the Central Board, you always answered our questions and told us what the bigger problems were. You were never afraid to take a stand on something, and we always felt that football would be okay as long as you were somehow involved. Frankly, we just believed in you.
We have seen you win with humility, always complimenting players and staff. We also watched carefully as you showed us all how to be gracious in a loss. When you played UMS Wright, and Terry Curtis complimented your team or your game plan in a win or a loss, you walked a little taller the next week.
You always had time to talk football. It didn't matter whether it was a big time college coach or a 1A assistant, you always made time. You cared about the young coaches and tried to help any way that you could. When you saw their faces, you saw the future of the game.
The media people loved you. You always told the truth, always had a laugh or a great quote. Many of us on Saturday morning would say, "Hey, did you see what Terry said after their game?"
Back in the 70s and 80s, we often talked about what it meant to have "class" when it came to football. When you look up the definition it says, "unequaled excellence".
That surely describes your life and coaching career.
Thanks Coach
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