Bill Curry’s heart will beat for two teams Saturday night. On the one hand, Georgia Tech is the alma mater of the 81-year-old Curry, who was an All-American center for the Yellow Jackets and later their coach. It’s where he played for the legendary Bobby Dodd, which meant he also left Tech with a degree (in industrial management).
“Georgia Tech gave me everything I’ve got,” Curry said Tuesday in a phone interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Our coach made me go to class when I was an idiot at 17 years old. Only one place did that. So there’s a deep loyalty there.
“But I love Georgia State.”
Georgia State is the school that provided Curry with the opportunity of a lifetime – to build the Panthers football program from scratch, starting in 2008 at the age of 65. Not only that, but, befitting its reputation as an institution that opens wide its doors to part-time students, it’s the university that enabled Curry’s wife, Carolyn, to earn her master’s and Ph.D. degrees in history one class at a time. As she was raising her two children and managing the household as her husband pursued his career in football, Carolyn Curry told people that her field of study was “10:40,” her husband said.
And when they asked for an explanation, “She said, ‘That means I can take the children to school, drive downtown and whatever the history department is offering at 10:40 a.m., that’s what I take,’” Curry said.
And that is why Bobby Dodd Stadium is the last place you will find Bill Curry on Saturday night, when his Jackets and his Panthers will tussle with each other on a football field for the first time in their history. He will be at his Buckhead condominium “comfortably ensconced on my sofa,” to use his words. He would prefer to just watch the game and avoid repeated inquiries about his rooting interests.
“Just relax, you don’t have to worry about who I’m pulling for,” said Curry, the only person to serve as head coach at both schools. “I want both teams to do well.”
It’s a juicy moment for both teams, their campuses separated by less than two miles. Following its upset win over No. 10 Florida State in Ireland on Saturday, Tech likely would return to the Top 25 for the first time since 2015 with a win over the Panthers.
Georgia State will play its first game under first-time coach Dell McGee and its first against either of the in-state power-conference teams. A full stadium is expected, probably including more than a few with ties to both schools like Bill and Carolyn Curry.
Metro Atlanta is rife with them. The most notable – possibly the second most notable, after the genial old coach – is Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Tech (chemical engineering) and a master’s from Georgia State (public administration).
And while college football’s attention will be placed rightfully on the Georgia-Clemson noon Saturday showdown at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the nightcap down the road at Bobby Dodd will mean just as much to those involved. Leave it to the historian in Curry’s family, listening along to the interview as they drove to Highlands, North Carolina, to summarize the game succinctly.
“Carolyn just said it’ll be great for our state,” Curry said. “And it is.”
Curry remains affiliated with both schools, though more closely with Tech as Georgia State’s athletic department has gone significant turnover since he coached his last season for the Panthers in 2012.
He has gotten to know Tech coach Brent Key, bound as Jackets offensive linemen who returned to coach their alma mater. Curry and a number of his players have formed a group that has raised funds for initiatives like name, image and likeness deals, calling it “a joyful thing for us.”
Curry was thrilled to watch from home the Jackets’ upset over the Seminoles. Normally one to watch games in silence, he couldn’t restrain himself when Tech kicker Aidan Birr made the game-winning field goal just as Carolyn returned home.
“But then I got loud,” he said. “‘Hey, we did it! We did it!’”
Curry accepted an invitation from McGee to address his Panthers team during preseason training at the team’s facility.
“And I reminded them when we started the program, not only did we not have a facility, we didn’t have a football,” Curry said.
He came away impressed with McGee, hired from Georgia after serving eight seasons on coach Kirby Smart’s staff, and encouraged by the program’s direction under his leadership.
“At the end of his meeting, he did something that would alert his team to special situations, and I’m not going to reveal what it was because I think that would be a betrayal because it’s special,” Curry said. “I have never seen it before, and it was absolutely brilliant.”
Curry doesn’t expect a lopsided result. He has seen Georgia State topple Tennessee (in 2019) and nearly take down Auburn (2021). The Panthers, while heavily retooled from last season in coach Shawn Elliott’s last year, finished 7-6. Curry was confident, too, that Key’s staff will not overlook Georgia State.
“I think it’ll be fun to watch for everybody except me, and I don’t want anybody to lose,” Curry said.
Credit to Georgia State athletic director Charlie Cobb and former Tech AD Todd Stansbury for creating the home-and-home series, the back half of which takes place in 2026. Intrastate games, to say nothing of intracity games, reward fans (and players) in a way that most other non-conference games (and sometimes even actual conference games) cannot. The 2026 game ought not be the last time that the Panthers and Jackets meet.
And if you must know which school lays claim to the larger part of Curry’s heart, it’s not that hard to figure out.
“I’m going to celebrate when either of them does well, but for me to pull against Georgia Tech is almost impossible,” he said.
Ensconced at home on a sofa, or anywhere else.
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