I've been a Carolina Tarheels basketball fan my entire life. However, when the NBA draft gets underway on Thursday, I won't be watching to see Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, and Danny Green. No, I'll be watching because of Stephen Curry who did what a Secretary of State (Dean Rusk), a bestselling author (Patricia Cornwell), a Fox News anchor (the late Tony Snow), and a former ACC basketball coach (Terry Holland) were unable to do - put tiny Davidson College on the map. With a sweet jump shot and a million dollar smile, Stephen Curry captured the hearts of basketball fans across the country during the team's run in the 2008 NCAA tournament. Suddenly, people who had never heard of Davidson College (and it is a college - not a university) knew all about the school's honor code and laundry service. They no longer confused Davidson (North Carolina) with Denison (Ohio) or Dickinson (Pennsylvania). Strangers high fived me when they saw my Davidson window sticker and my children's friends in Atlanta finally forgave them for not being Georgia Bulldog fans. It was a good day to be a Wildcat and it was all because of Stephen Curry.
His story is well known among basketball fans. His parents were super star athletes for Virginia Tech and it was his dream to follow his father first to Blacksburg and then to the NBA. However, he was skinny and looked like he was twelve. Coaches from the bigger conferences were ignoring him, and that suited Davidson coach Bob McKillop just fine. McKillop had his eye on Stephen Curry from the time the young player first came to his summer basketball camp. As larger programs continued to ignore Curry, Davidson continued to recruit him. When Curry finalized his decision to come to Davidson, the Coach calmly shook his hand and then as he walked out of sight, danced a jig! He knew what no one else seemed to. Stephen Curry was a big time basketball player and he was bringing his game to the little college that could.
There was a time when Davidson held its own in Division 1 athletics. That time was a long time ago. However, this liberal arts college with only 1,600 students is dedicated to remaining a Division 1 school. Although most of the basketball games are waged against conference foes such as Appalachian State University and Elon College, the early part of the schedule always includes in-state behemoths like UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University. By his sophomore year, Stephen Curry was one of the nation's leading scorers. Together with the nation's assist leader, Jason Richards, Curry took the Davidson basketball program on the road where they played top talent and held their own. It was all just a prelude, though, for March Madness. For Davidson fans, the tournament was a blur of late game heroics, students singing Sweet Caroline, and camera men beaming images of Curry's beautiful mother cheering him on. For the Wildcat basketball team, the tournament ended ONE SHOT SHORT of advancing to the Final Four. For Stephen Curry, things would never be the same.
He was on David Letterman, Charlie Rose, and the Dan Patrick Show. People were encouraging him to go pro. Davidson fans started a "Stephen Curry Please Stay" group on Facebook. The Davidson College bookstore couldn't keep basketball items stocked. Not since Lefty Driesell had coached a guy named Terry Holland at Davidson had there been so much interest in Wildcat basketball. When Curry announced he would be returning for his junior year and the chance to play point guard, he guaranteed that the interest would not be wane.
Things were different in 2008-09. First of all, Davidson didn't take anyone by surprise any more. They played in nationally televised games and started the season in the Top-25. Jason Richards had graduated and Stephen Curry was now playing the point. When you are dishing the ball out, it's not always easy to get your shot. It did not seem as effortless as it had the year before. People were saying he had ruined his chances in the draft by staying around for that extra year. A late season injury and a loss in the Southern Conference Tournament semi-finals - which meant the Wildcats would not be returning to the NCAA tournament - seemed to bolster this view. Suddenly it was his younger brother, Seth, who was grabbing the headlines with word that he would be transferring from Liberty and then with the announcement that he would play for Duke - one of the big time programs that never considered Stephen as a serious recruit. Curry said he would make a decision about whether to go pro quickly. Once again, Davidson fans, a group that now far outnumbered the College's alumni, waited for word of what Curry would do.
As Carolina made their run in the 2009 tournament, I lurked on message boards to read the latest on Ty Lawson's ankle and Tyler Hansbrough's quest for the nets in Detroit. Every day, there was a thread that had to do with Stephen Curry on the front page. Detractors were claiming he wasn't anywhere near the caliber point guard that Ty Lawson is. Supporters were wondering if the detractors had ever actually watched him play. Regardless of where people stood on him, they were talking about him even as their own team made its march through the madness. What would he do? Finally, word came that he had made his decision.
Davidson College had never hosted this kind of press conference before. Davidson athletes are not usually in the position to leave college early for the pros. They are there so they have something to do after playing college sports. They usually go on to law school or medical school or into banking. You don't hold a press conference to announce that you have decided to remain in school so that your L-SAT scores will rise. When the press conference was announced, the coach said he didn't know the decision and the student wasn't talking. By the time the press convened, Curry had told Coach McKillop and McKillop had told Stephen's parents. He would be leaving college to enter the NBA draft.
You have to wish him well. If your love of Davidson College is deep, you have to wish him well because of all he has done for that place that is special to you. If you didn't know that Davidson was not Dickinson until he led them on that magical run, you have to wish him well because he made you root for a school that you had never heard of and proved that good guys don't always finish last. If you were ever overlooked because you didn't look the part, you have to wish him well because he took his lemons and made lemonade. On Thursday night, he will be drinking that lemonade in the green room.
No matter what happens on Thursday night, Stephen Curry will be the highest draft pick ever to come out of Davidson College! Many people will be rooting for him to succeed. Probably just as many will be watching for him to fail. One NBA team will inherit at least one new fan. I will always root for the team that is smart enough to take a chance on a skinny kid with a pedigree and a million dollar smile. It has long been said that "A Davidson man needs no introduction." In the case of Stephen Curry, truer words cannot be spoken. I will be watching on Thursday as Stephen Curry's name is announced and he, once again, does his alma mater and those who share it proud. Then, I'll wait around to see where those Tarheels get drafted!