It is not surprising therefore, that the walls of his office just a few steps away from the basketball gym would excite any sport memorabilia collector. For the "Coach" himself, a basketball and baseball fixture at Molloy for over 50 years, the celebrity pictures, autographed baseballs and basketballs, are just part of a catalog of a life spent doing what he loves--coaching.

Hanging from the rafters along the gym's perimeter are dozens of tributes to the Coach's success. Under Curran, Molloy basketball teams have won 870 games and five NYC CHSAA titles. In baseball, he has led Molloy's varsity team to victory in 17 of 26 CHSAA titles in 50 years. The 1970 team went undefeated 36-0, and in 1966, Coach led Molloy through a 68 game winning streak--an incredible accomplishment in high school baseball where anything can happen and big pitchers can be so dominant.

When asked about his success, Coach Jack Curran simply smiles as he reveals his secret. "Well, we have had a lot of good players. That never hurts. And we also had some great players."

A 50 Year Perspective
Besides being modest, Coach is also genuine. Developing strong relationships with your players and simply being who you are, he says, are keys to success in coaching.

"The most important thing about coaching was my relationship with the kids who played for me. That was the basic, fundamental strength that I had to offer. If you treat your players with respect, then you get it back from them. If they sense that you are trying to help them do things in a proper way, to improve their game, then they will respond and do whatever you want," he says. "I really have a good relationship with my kids. Now, many of my former players are some of my best friends."

And it shows. When Coach was inducted into the Archbishop Molloy Hall of Fame earlier this year--a move he resisted because he is a down right modest person, not to mention not being a Molloy graduate--more than 400 former players showed up. "The school told me they were going to do it anyway. To make it right they gave me a Molloy diploma to say that I was a graduate."

Part of relating well to one's players, according to Curran, is also simply remaining true to yourself and to your personality.

Coach Curran recalls Dick King, his high school coach at All Hallows Prep in the Bronx, as being different from many people. "He was my first real coach--football, basketball and baseball. And he was a very demanding coach with a strong personality--an old school Lombardi-like coach. He was tough, he made you compete, he made you play hard. He had the ability to make people compete."

Following graduation from All Hallows, Jack Curran went to St. Johns where he played for Frank McGuire for four of the five years that McGuire coached there. "He was a totally different character. He was more approachable, easy to talk to, easy-going, yet still got the same great results. That was just who he was...a great role model, a good people person who made you feel good. Seldom did he get upset, he was good at hiding his emotions, especially around a referee. He was simply the man...a psychological genius!"

At the time, Curran remembers thinking of Frank McGuire, who was then in his 30s when he coached at St. John's, as ancient. "My kids probably think I am ancient, and probably rightfully so as I am in my late 70s. But that doesn't matter as long as they respond to what you are doing. You are not getting it done as a coach once you sense that your players no longer respond."

One way many coaches lose the responsiveness of their players, says Curran, is by acting or trying to do something that is out of their character. "They tackle a challenge the way they imagine Vince Lombardi or Bobby Knight would do it. When you start coaching, the most important point I can stress is to keep your own personality. Be yourself... always...or it looks fake!"

Kids are very perceptive today and Curran says trying to be something different from your true personality just won't work. "I see a lot of young coaches trying to imitate Dean Smith or Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski instead of coaching as themselves. You can't coach as a different person with a different personality. You have to be yourself to be a good coach."

As an example, Curran singles out Coach Bill Belichick. "If you compare Coach Belichick to other coaches you realize that he is doing his own thing. He has his own personality: some say he is unemotional, too businesslike, almost uncoach like. Yes, compared to a Lombardi, he is totally different, but still a great coach. Any type of personality can be a great coach."

One of Curran's favorite coaches was John Wooden--under whom, UCLA won 10 NCAA championships, including seven consecutive from 1966 to 1973. "I read everything he wrote, and I admired his teams. They were all quick, they all used the backboard, they all had short haircuts. His teams had a lot of class."

Placing Winning In Perspective
The winning success of Coach Wooden, and the peer recognition that followed, aside, Curran advises young coaches to place winning in a proper perspective. Young coaches, he says, shouldn't worry as much about winning but rather focus more on improving the play of their players and making sure they do what they are supposed to do. Young players are going to make mistakes---that is not the fault of the coaching it is the nature of coaching.

"I think too much emphasis is placed on winning. Even though you try to win, too many young coaches think winning is the endall and on the lower levels, it really is not. Coaching is mainly teaching the game and getting the maximum effort from your players...that matters more. We want to teach kids discipline, responsibility, and team effort."

Curran defers to Bobby Knight's definition of discipline--a concept dear to him because it closely paralled what his parents advocated--as an inspiration for young players and coaches. "Do what you have to do. Do it every day. And do it as well as you can."

Doing as well as you can for Coach Curran means constantly revising his own coaching philosophy which continues to evolve even in his '70s. Right now, he says a man-to-man offense that he really likes and that he can teach still eludes him.

"The one that I teach, I like, but is is not perfect. So you are constantly in search of improvement. Even though I have had teams, like my 73-74 group which ran that offense perfect, I can't get every team to do that. They all have to have certain skills to run that. I would like to have an offense that almost any team can run regardless of the skill level there...and that is hard to find."

As a result of the potential to interact with many other coaches, Curran views summer camps and clinics as ideal opportunities where young coaches can hone their skills. "You can really learn to coach because you have a lot of different kids and no focus on winning. And you learn by listening to all the other coaches talk about their philosophies."

Favorite Moment as a Coach
With five basketball and 17 baseball championships, it not surprising that it may be difficult for Coach Curran to single out a favorite coaching moment. But when pressed, it is not surprising given Coach's perspective as a teacher and a motivator which moment he singled out.

Curran admits that when his teams run an offense and a player scores a basket outside of the scheduled play: "You feel good." But not as good, he cautioned, as when a basketball score results from practicing and running an offense the way it is suppossed to run.

During Molloy's 1973 basketball season, Coach fielded a "new" team that took half a season to gell. During the course of that season, Archbishop Molloy lost twice to Holy Cross High School. "They beat us quite handily," recalls Curran.

Molloy faced them again in the semi-finals of the city championship, and according to Curran, Holy Cross played Molloy the same way with an aggressive full-court press.

"But we had practised an offense against their full-court press, where we threw a baseline pass, hit the post, turned opposite, hit the opposite wing, and then ran a guy long on the opposite side. It was, one, two, three, four passes and a lay up. And we did it consistently, and beat them in the game that really counted. That was an very gratifying coaching moment because the team executed everything we practiced to a 'T". I don't even remember who we went on to beat in the finals that year. But I remember that Holy Cross semifinal victory as an extremely satisfying game."

Embracing the Team
In his 50 year of high school sports, Jack Curran has coached many talented players to whom he readily attributes much of his success. "Kevin Joyce", says Curran, "was totally committed to playing basketball." In his senior year, Joyce led the team to the city championship and in doing so he won the MVP of the CHSAA.  After graduation from Molloy, Kevin played under coach Frank McGuire at the University of South Carolina where he lead the team to the ACC Championship and national rankings in 1971-72.

Curran also coached Kenny Anderson, who as a 16-year-old high school sophomore, was considered one of the best basketball prospects in America. By the end of his high school career, he was a three-time Parade All-American, and the first player to be named All-City four times. Despite being benched for the first quarter of all of his games during his freshman year at Molloy by Curran, Anderson set the all-time state record for scoring in New York, with 2,621 points a record that stood for 18 years. Besides Joyce and Anderson, other NBA stars coached by Curran include Kenny Smith, Brian Winters, and Robert Werdann.

But Curran says the players he appreciates the most were not necessarily the stars that he coached, but rather the non starters on his teams. "They work hard in practice, push the starters to play better, yet get comparatively little playing time. I really appreciate them, they are an amazing bunch of guys. On your really good teams, it is your back-up players that are most crucial."

Few coaches have enjoyed the recognition and success that has fallen upon Coach Curran during his 50 year run at Archbishop Molloy. At times, when more recognition heads his way, he appears to look at you with a quizical glance asking "what all the fuss about?" Deep down inside one recognizes that it really is not about him, it really is about his players--getting them to be the best they can be. Afterall, as far as Coach Curran is concerned, "If you love your job..."you don't have to work a day in your life."

Coaches Corner