HUSBAND, WIFE COACHING TOGETHER AT NORTHSIDE

itting in the bleachers at Northside’s Kaundart-Grizzly Fieldhouse, Felix Curry glances over at the sideline occupied by the Lady Bears volleyball squad. There, he sees several of the players receiving instruction from the team’s assistant coach, who also happens to be his wife, Cartrina Curry. A few nights later, when the Grizzly football team is in the middle of a game at their home, Mayo-Thompson Stadium, Cartrina Curry takes a look at the sideline during a break in action. She sees several of the players getting coached up by the Grizzlies’ defensive coordinator, who also happens to be her husband, Felix Curry. The Currys are spouses, parents and teachers. They are also coaching at the same school. “I look forward to getting up every day coming to work and knowing she’s right around the corner and go to her games, and vice versa she can come to our games, so it’s been a great, great deal for our family,” Felix Curry said. Cartrina Curry agrees with her husband that it is special to be able to work together at the same school. “It was a great opportunity, and sometimes we ride to work together and ride home together, obviously, so it is a great opportunity to be in the same school,” Cartrina Curry said. Felix Curry, who is originally from South Carolina, met his future wife, a Florida native, while both were attending Mars Hill, a college in North Carolina. They were also athletic standouts; Felix playing free safety on the football team while Cartrina was a standout on the volleyball squad. The Currys began dating, and soon after got married, in November of 1992. They eventually had three sons, C.J., Darius and Justin. Felix Curry knew he wanted to be a football coach once his playing days were over. “I loved everything about it, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do in the beginning,” he said. He soon found work in Georgia, and the family spent nearly two decades there, with Felix eventually getting a head coaching job. Cartrina, on the other hand, didn’t coach right away, as she became a stay-at-home mom when the couple’s two oldest sons were born. “To be honest, when we first got married we had kids real, real soon. ... We chose that she would be a stay-at-home mom and she continued to play volleyball for a co-ed league and coaching AAU volleyball,” Felix Curry said. “Once we decided our boys were old enough and she was going to work outside the home, it worked out that she got in a situation where she was able to get into coaching.” In 2013, the Currys came to Fort Smith when Felix got a job on the staff of Northside’s new football coach, Mike Falleur, who had coached for many years in Georgia and someone Felix Curry knew quite well from his days there. Cartrina also got a job, teaching science at Darby Junior High while serving as an assistant with the volleyball program. The couple had never set foot in Arkansas before relocating to Fort Smith, but both have grown to enjoy being here. “After being here for a while and working at Darby and getting to know the staff and the coaches, it was one of those things that one day I thought, ‘OK, I can live here,’ and it’s the people, definitely the people,” Cartrina Curry said. “We’ve found some really good friends, we found some church members and so it makes it a lot easier to say, ‘Hey, this may be the place for us.’” Then in 2016, the Currys got the chance to see one another at the same school when Cartrina — who still teaches at Darby — came to Northside as an assistant when Matt Waack was hired as the school’s volleyball coach. “I helped at Darby my second year; I volunteered to help with the volleyball program there and then maybe two years later, coach Waack got the position here and he knew I had played before in college and in high school and asked if I was interested in being his assistant,” Cartrina said. “It’s kind of hard to stay away from it when it’s something you enjoy doing, so that was an easy yes to him to be a part of Northside volleyball.” Both being coaches, there have been times when Felix or Cartrina has had to lift the other up. Not to mention times when one had to dispense coaching advice to the other. “We’re each other’s encouragers and at the same time, we’re each other’s critics,” Felix Curry said. “Sometimes, she has to remind me, these are young men, these are not grown men and I get paid for it and sometimes I may have to encourage her to do the same, but being close enough to each other that we always try to push each other to be at our best, especially for kids. “We remind each other that they’re people first and not players only. So it’s been good to have that person that knows and is going to give you an honest critique.” Early in Felix’s coaching career, there were many occasions in which he focused more on his work and less on his wife and children. Cartrina quickly reminded Felix to focus on the balance between work and family. “Because there’s so much that can be done through the course of a day with coaching, I was bringing my work home and she had to remind me, ‘Look, I understand you want to be successful, but you are a dad, you are a husband,’ and so as much I can, I try to do my work here at work ever since then,” Felix said. However, there was one work-related thing Felix still insisted on doing once he returns home after a ballgame. “The only thing I’ve asked her is after a loss, I have to watch it that night, and she knows like on Friday nights, if we win I can wait and watch it the next day, but she knows if it’s a loss, I have to watch it to see what I could have done better. ... I think it’s one of those things as soon as you watch it and get it out of your system, you start moving forward and I think she understood that,” Felix said. Both also began to understand the nuances and complexities of each other’s sport. Cartrina learned more about football from her husband, and in turn, Felix has studied volleyball more intently, though he admits he still has some things to figure out watching his wife’s sport. “Even like now, I watch them substitute and I’m like, ‘I don’t get it,’” Felix Curry said. “She’s explained that to me, but I’m a little slow so that’s taken me quite a while to get it because I still don’t know. “It’s just like anything else, once you get the chance to learn it, you appreciate it more, so I appreciate watching her and coach Waack do what they do with those girls and I’ve learned a lot just by watching. ... I started picking it up a little bit more and it’s a lot more complex than what I thought.” Since both football and volleyball are going on at the same time, it has been extremely busy for both Currys. But they still find the time to see the other’s games. “Of course, you have your practices and you have your games, but most of the time, I’m flexible,” said Felix Curry, who also coaches track and teaches physical education at Northside. “I can make it to her games on Thursday and at the same time, come to the junior high (football) games here. “Coach Falleur allows me to kind of stick my head in the gym for a while while going to the eighth-grade and the ninth-grade games, so it’s worked out. This is a busy time of the year, but it’s also an exciting time and it goes by fast to be honest. I guess it kind of speeds up the year for you.” Cartrina Curry knows it’s a very busy time for both of them, but at the same time, she finds it rewarding. “It’s busy; it’s busy but it’s fun,” she said. “It’s stressful; you don’t know what’s going to happen from day to day sometimes because you have a lot, but it’s something you enjoy being a part of. “The young ladies are really good young ladies, they’re coachable, they do their best to do what you ask them to do and the end result speaks for itself.” There’s been another benefit for the Currys settling down here in Fort Smith. All three of their sons aren’t too far away. C.J. and Darius, both of whom received football scholarships to play at Oklahoma State University, now live in Fayetteville and Tahlequah, Okla., respectively. Justin Curry, who played at Northside, now attends the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. “With them being in this area, it made it easier for us to want to make roots here,” Felix Curry said. Both Currys also make sure that they not only do what’s best for one another, they also make sure to do what’s best for the athletes they are coaching. “Football has always been a pretty big part of our lives, (Felix has) been coaching for many, many years and so when I jumped on the bandwagon coaching, like most people, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a piece of cake,’ but it’s not that easy to transition from player to coach, and so as a coach, it’s remembering the players are people,” Cartrina Curry said. “Every day is not going to be a good day, every day is not going to be an easy day, but at the same time, every day we can make it through if we just kind of think about the things we’re asking of them and ourselves that we do and give our very best to the students and our players.”

HUSBAND, WIFE COACHING TOGETHER AT NORTHSIDE

BUCK RINGGOLD

Times Record | 9/23/2019

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Mitchell