web1_John-EzarMUG.jpg

Bye coach Curry, it’s been great knowing you

web1_BoysAllStarBB_3.jpg

Hopkins, Planutis duo sparks Team White win

<p>For Bo Orlando, it was like losing a father.</p><p>To Harry Kasky, it&#8217;s the sudden absence of a life-long friend.</p><p>With a heavy heart, Eugene Lewis spoke of missing more than a mentor.</p><p>And in Berwick, it&#8217;s a hole that may never be filled.</p><p>George Curry, the iconic coach, father-figure, friend and family man who united a once-fractured Berwick community through unmatched Pennsylvania high school football success, died Friday morning after a six-month battle with ALS. He was 71 and fought through serious physical limitations caused by the disease while coaching Berwick to a fourth consecutive District 2 Class 3A championship game appearance this past fall.</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;re not going to replace him,&#8221; said Carl Kern, who played under Curry during his first head football coaching job at Lake-Lehman High School and went on to star at Ohio State. &#8220;He was the only person I knew, besides coach (Woody) Hayes, who cared about his players, even after you were done playing for him and out in the world.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s nobody like him.&#8221;</p><p>Curry&#8217;s 455 victories during 46 seasons coaching Lehman, Berwick and Wyoming Valley West stand as a Pennsylvania high school record. But those who played for him, coached against him and watched him work say his magic touch that brought Berwick three mythical national championships and six PIAA Class 3A state titles extended far beyond the football field.</p><p>&#8220;I knew him as a coach, a father, a man,&#8221; said Orlando, who quarterbacked Curry&#8217;s first national title team at Berwick before spending a decade as a defensive back in the NFL. &#8220;Football was his life. But he was just a great, great guy. He was a coach, a football coach.</p><p>&#8220;And a life coach.&#8221;</p><p>Former Penn State playmaker Eugene Lewis felt it first-hand.</p><p>&#8220;I appreciate coach Curry so much,&#8221; said Lewis, a fifth-year senior wide receiver now at Oklahoma who played under Curry as a freshman at Valley West in 2008, before spending four years with the Nittany Lions. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t be where I am today without him. He was always full of information. When he had something to say, you listened to him. Because it would help you be successful in life. It&#8217;s a very, very sad thing.</p><p>&#8220;I wish I could have seen him one more time.&#8221;</p><p>Former Dallas head coach Ted Jackson saw how much Curry cared for kids.</p><p>Bitter rivals on the football field, Jackson was struck by how passionately, and how often, Curry tried to promote opposing players throughout the Wyoming Valley Conference.</p><p>&#8220;He was a fierce competitor,&#8221; said Jackson, now an assistant at Valley West. &#8220;He&#8217;d spend the whole week doing everything he could to beat you. The next week, he&#8217;s helping one of your kids get to college. Berwick, he put them on the map. What he did for that town is incredible.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a sad day for Berwick and a sad day for Wyoming Valley Conference football.&#8221;</p><p>Gary Campbell felt Curry&#8217;s passion for winning from across the way.</p><p>Campbell, currently coaching high school football in his native Massachusetts, replaced Curry at the Berwick helm for three seasons and ultimately had to battle Curry&#8217;s Wyoming Valley West teams three times during WVC play.</p><p>&#8220;He was so good at halftime adjustments and in-game adjustments,&#8221; Campbell said. &#8220;He was phenomenal. The first game we played them at Valley West, I remember it vividly. We were up at halftime and doing well. What I remember most he made better halftime adjustments than we did and they came out and beat us. The second game, at Berwick, that stadium was packed to the gills. We lost a 35-32 heartbreaker. But even though he was at a rival, as a coach, as a man, as a person, the door was always open for me and anybody interested in Berwick football. For me, personally, I was very grateful.</p><p>&#8220;It was nice to know a person of such stature cared about the program.&#8221;</p><p>Curry&#8217;s care, and reach, extended far beyond the borders of Berwick and Northeastern Pennsylvania.</p><p>He sent Ron Powlus to Notre Dame, Orlando, Jake Kelchner and Tom Robsock to West Virginia, Gus Felder to Penn State and hundreds of other scholarship players to colleges around the country. Mainly because NCAA programs from small Division III schools to major college football powers trusted Curry&#8217;s recommendations and judgment &#8212; about high school kids who played for him and against him.</p><p>Former Penn State coach Bill O&#8217;Brien, now guiding the NFL&#8217;s Houston Texans, once told the story of how Curry alerted him about former Berwick long snapper Zach Ladonis, who was on Penn State&#8217;s campus and out of football at the time. Not long after that phone conversation between O&#8217;Brien and Curry, Ladonis was out of the student cheering section at Beaver Stadium and in the lineup for the Nittany Lions, solving their snapping problems on special teams.</p><p>But whether his players happened to be long-shots or big shots on a college campus, Curry kept them all close to his heart forever. He often boasted about the number of professionals his football programs produced, from medical professionals to community leaders who heeded his advice to use the sport as a tool to lifelong success.</p><p>&#8220;You read about some of the guys who were Division I athletes,&#8221; said Berwick athletic director Frank Sheptock, who will follow Curry as Berwick&#8217;s coach in the fall. &#8220;There&#8217;s about 95 percent who weren&#8217;t Division I athletes who he had maybe more of an impact on. George made Berwick football what it was. He was an iconic figure, larger than life.&#8221;</p><p>Curry&#8217;s life&#8217;s work was more than fulfilled, many who knew him say, by helping young men develop productive futures through the sport of football.</p><p>&#8220;He helped a lot of people, a lot of young men, get places and see places they&#8217;d never see,&#8221; said Kern, who was also a former head coach at Lake-Lehman, said of Curry. &#8220;I know for a fact there were players who got into colleges because of playing against him. I went into my office one day and there were college coaches there. I said, &#8216;I didn&#8217;t talk to you.&#8217; They said, &#8216;Coach Curry told us to get ahold of you, he said you&#8217;ve got a pretty good kid.&#8217;&#8221;</p><p>It was a great example for other programs to follow.</p><p>Jim Roth thought so.</p><p>Long before the Southern Columbia head coach broke Curry&#8217;s record for state championship titles by coaching the 2015 Tigers to the school&#8217;s seventh PIAA title, Roth modeled his program after Curry&#8217;s system at Berwick.</p><p>&#8220;I probably learned more from him in observing his program than any other coach in the last few decades,&#8221; said Roth, who has 380 career coaching wins in 32 seasons. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t play them much on the varsity level. Away from game nights, we spent quite a bit of time together over the years, in different settings &#8212; clinics, conferences, camps. Coaches used to go up and meet with him all the time. A lot of people think of Berwick football as a wide-open passing game and throwing the football. Berwick still used a power running game a lot.</p><p>&#8220;The other area that was a direct result of watching him and his program,&#8221; Roth continued, &#8220;was running the quarterback. Not running the option, we do it the way Berwick does it, straight (quarterback) running plays, keeper plays and trying to get your kids to play with a lot of aggressiveness and intensity, especially on the defensive side of the ball.&#8221;</p><p>Kasky had a ball growing up with Curry.</p><p>The two attended the old Larksville High School together, and often worked with each other as adults &#8212; when Kasky became a PIAA official and worked some of the games Curry coached.</p><p>&#8220;He was the same guy all the way through &#8212; very even-keeled,&#8221; Kasky said. &#8220;He was always and Xs and Os man, always very good. He never really yelled or screamed at the officials, he was always doing his coaching. He made a heck of a lot of friends.</p><p>&#8220;I think he has more friends than the president of the United States.&#8221;</p><p>And a legacy that will burn in the memories of Wyoming Valley Conference football forever.</p><p>&#8220;Quite frankly, he built a dynasty,&#8221; Orlando said. &#8220;Now he&#8217;s in a better place.&#8221;</p><style>
.neFileBlock {
	margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
	margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
	border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
	padding-bottom: 5px;
	padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
	font-size: 85%;
}
</style>
<div class='neFileBlock'>
<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_wvw_fb02_09_02_2006_S245OIJ-4.jpeg">
<div class="neCaption">Wyoming Valley West coach George Curry gathers his team into a huddle for a quick pep talk before the start of their game with Scranton in 2006. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_wvw_fb02_09_02_2006_S245OIJ-4.jpeg</photo0><caption0>Wyoming Valley West coach George Curry gathers his team into a huddle for a quick pep talk before the start of their game with Scranton in 2006. </caption0><photoCredit0>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader file photo </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_berwickcoughlin2-4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Berwick coach George Curry, center, looks out onto the field during a District 2 Class 3A semifinal game against Coughlin this past season at Crispin Field in Berwick. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/web1_berwickcoughlin2-4.jpg</photo1><caption1>Berwick coach George Curry, center, looks out onto the field during a District 2 Class 3A semifinal game against Coughlin this past season at Crispin Field in Berwick. </caption1><photoCredit1>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader file photo </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>The passing of George Curry stings statewide football community</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Paul Sokoloski</p><p>psokoloski@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Paul Sokoloski at 570-991-6392 or on Twitter @TLPaulSokoloski</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Death of iconic Berwick football coach George Curry leaves statewide football community feeling empty