Curry High wins first playoff game in 30 years

CURRY, Ala. (WBRC) - The Curry High School football team won its first playoff game in 30 years last week and will host a second-round game against Oneonta on Friday night.

Curry is in year four under head coach Jace Cordell, who says his player have persevered after growing up hearing that you couldn’t win at Curry.

“‘You’re Curry, you can’t do this.’ That’s what they’ve heard all their lives growing up here, and we’ve been drilling it into your heads that it don’t gotta be like that,” Cordell said.

Doubt from years of losing

The Yellow Jackets have had four winless seasons since 2019. Cordell said that history has left doubt in the community, even after the playoff win.

“There was a lot of people around the community that still have a few questions, whether to buy in or not,” Cordell said. “I told the guys, there’s a lot of people that still don’t believe in you.”

Senior Heath Miller is the quarterback for this Yellow Jackets team that has fought through the losing seasons to get here.

“Having no one believe in us. Us not believe in us. The crowd, going into the game being like oh we’ll lose, but maybe we won’t lose as much, it’s hard to come out and still play and show up to practice every day,” Miller said.

The players said they heard the noise and saw hateful messages on social media. They kept going.

“We wanted to be different. We didn’t want to be like every other class that came through here and was ok with losing,” Miller said.

Looking ahead

The senior class has delivered one of the best seasons in school history. The players said they hope it is a turning point for the program.

“They gotta keep fighting. They can’t take this season for granted and just say, we went to the playoff that was my goal for my high school years,” senior Karson Whittemore said.

Miller said the seniors want to set a new standard.

“Next year they win, and next year they win. We want to continue a tradition and change Curry around,” Miller said.

Curry’s second-round game against Oneonta is the SIDELINE Game of the Week. WBRC 6 News will have live pre-game coverage beginning Friday at 4 p.m.

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