Today on the College Basketball Edition of The IX Sports Podcast, co-hosts Melissa Triebwasser and Michael Waterloo bring you an interview with University of South Florida’s (USF) new head coach, Kristy Curry.
Before taking the job in Tampa this offseason, Curry served as the head coach for the University of Alabama’s women’s basketball team for over a decade.
“I’m really proud to be here, and you know, it’s a special, special place with special people, special resources, and it’s, you know, it’s our responsibility now to not let all these folks down and do everything we can to be consistently, you know, playing in the NCAA tournament deep into March,” Curry said.
Building relationships
In the interview, Curry emphasized the importance of relationship building over the course of her career. Since 1999, Curry has served as a head coach at just four schools: Purdue University, Texas Tech University, Alabama and now USF.
In the new era of the transfer portal, Curry said, relationship-building is still valuable; most of the players her coaching staff has brought in this spring are players Curry and her staff had previously-existing relationships with.
Waterloo asked if there have been challenges to selling USF to recruits when Curry is new to the environment herself.
“I think it’s just been more about … the communication and building a relationship, you know, it’s kind of like speed dating, it’s got to be quick, right? We had — honestly, we had 16 straight days of visits. I’m talking one day off, not one break, it was 16 straight, and it was 24/7 even to the point where I was sleeping on my couch in the office, which I absolutely love,” Curry said.
To round out the interview, Triebwasser and Waterloo gave Curry a series of rapid-fire questions, including asking her to weigh in on some of her former players, favorite memories in Tuscaloosa, and how things have changed over the course of her coaching career.
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What you missed on today’s episode of Women’s Sports Daily: DI golf national championship round-up, Barcelona wins UWCL