Countdown to Kickoff: No. 50

Bill Curry

The countdown to kickoff is officially on as Georgia Tech‘s season-opening matchup at Colorado on Aug. 29 is less than 100 days away.

Until then JOL will be counting it down with one Jackets’ player daily that wore the corresponding number of days remaining until toe meets leather in Boulder.

With it now 50 days until kickoff in Boulder, today’s focus is on No. 50 Bill Curry, who was a standout on the field for Georgia Tech in the 1960s, in the NFL after that and then returned to The Flats as head coach in the 1980s.

Curry grew up in College Park, Georgia on the southwest side of Atlanta and came to Georgia Tech in 1961 to play for legendary Jackets’ head coach Bobby Dodd. Curry made his way onto the field as a center and played big roles on the 1962, 1963 and 1964 teams, earning Second-Team All-American honors as a senior.

After his college career ended at Tech, Curry had multiple options to choose from for his pro career as he was drafted in both the NFL Draft (20th round, Green Bay Packers) and the AFL Draft (23rd round, Oakland Raiders). He chose to sign with the Packers and won an NFL championship his rookie season in 1965 followed by winning Super Bowl I in his second year as the Packers’ starting center.

Curry was selected by the New Orleans Saints in the 1967 NFL Expansion Draft but was traded shortly after to the Baltimore Colts where he would go on to win another NFL Championship in 1968 and another Super Bowl title in 1971.

He played for the Colts from 1967 to 1972 and then finished his pro career with one-year stints playing for the Houston Oilers (1973) and Los Angeles Rams (1974). He served as NFL Players Association vice president in 1972 and president from 1973-1975 and was a Second-Team All-Pro selection (1969) and two-time Pro Bowl selection. He played in 123 career games over 10 seasons in the NFL with 86 starts.

When his playing days were done, Curry turned his attention to becoming a football coach, getting his start as an assistant offensive line coach for the Green Bay Packers in 1975 and then an assistant coach at his alma mater Georgia Tech in 1976. He returned to Green Bay as an assistant from 1977-1979 before being named head coach at Georgia Tech in 1980.

Curry served at the helm for the Jackets from for seven seasons and compiled a record of 31-43-4 over that time frame with his best season coming in 1985 when Tech went 9-2-1 and won the Hall of Fame Classic 17-14 over Michigan State at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama to end the season.

Curry left Georgia Tech to take the head coaching job at Alabama in 1987 and was there for three seasons, going 26-10, before moving on to be the Kentucky head coach in 1990. He led the Wildcats for seven seasons through 1996 and won 26 games there.

After being a college football analyst for over a decade with ESPN, Curry made a return to the sideline as the inaugural head coach at Georgia State in 2008 (program played its first-ever season in 2010) and stayed in that role until 2012.

During his coaching career, Curry was named the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year in 1989, the SEC Coach of the Year in 1987 and 1989 and the ACC Coach of the Year in 1985. He was also honored with the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award in 2007 by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) for his “contributions to the advancement of the interests of football.”

Curry is a member of the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame being inducted as part of the class of 1969.