This is the 3rd in a series profiling this year's inductees for the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame and Wall of Honor, which will be posted every week at baylorbears.com.
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Some of us never get to actually meet our real-life heroes. Stan Curry got to walk amongst his.
Ranked No. 11 in the world in the high jump at one point, with a Baylor- and Southwest Conference-record mark of 6-11 ½, Curry actually beat eventual Olympic gold medalist Dick Fosbury at a non-sanctioned meet in Pomona, Calif., and made it through the first of a two-tier process for the 1968 U.S. Olympic Trials in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
"The first Olympic Trials were at the L.A. Coliseum, which was the most famous track venue in the world at the time," said Curry, a two-time SWC champion at Baylor. "My mouth was wide open the whole time I was there, going, 'Oh my God, this is unbelievable!'''
Bothered by shin splints at the end of a long season, Curry wasn't able to jump as well at the second stage of the Trials. But he trained for six weeks at a specially constructed track at Echo Summit (elevation, 7,337 feet), west of South Lake Tahoe, to mimic the high-altitude location for the Olympics in Mexico City.
The USA team that came out of those Trials is considered the greatest Olympic track and field team ever, "not just the United States but the world," Curry said. On the men's side alone, the Americans won a dozen Olympic gold medals, including Fosbury, decathlete Bill Toomey, pole vaulter Bob Seagren, Texas A&M's Randy Matson in the shot put, world-record long jumper Bob Beamon and controversial sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith.
"It was unbelievable. Just being around those guys was a dream," Curry said. "It was the neatest experience of my entire life, that's for sure. I was just awestruck the whole time. This guy from Waco, Texas and Kansas City, Mo., I didn't feel like I belonged. If I had had more confidence, I might have made that team. I really believe I had a good chance of making the '72 team, but I got married and quit track."
While Curry never earned a spot on the USA Olympics team, he can now add Baylor Hall of Famer to his long list of accomplishments. He is part of the 2023 Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame class that will be inducted Nov. 3.
"I feel as lucky as all get-out," said the 75-year-old Curry, who spent 50-plus years as a construction lawyer representing commercial contractors. "When I learned about it, I went back and looked up the Baylor Hall of Fame and the names of everybody. I didn't realize the athletics history of Baylor was that good. Of course, everybody knows about Michael Johnson and Jeremy Wariner and all the great basketball players we have now. But to compare me to Michael Johnson is absurd."
But there's no disputing that Curry deserves his spot among Baylor athletics' elite. After breaking the school record three times as a freshman, Curry raised the bar even higher by going 6-10 for the first time in 1967 and then a memorable junior year that included winning the Drake Relays, breaking a 12-year-old SWC record with a winning mark of 6-11 ½ and qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
"As far as I know, no individual (Baylor track and field athlete) had ever been invited to the Olympic Trials until I did," he said. "Nobody had ever won the Texas Relays or Drake Relays in an individual event. And it was a 12-year-old high jump record that I broke at the conference meet. Those are all things that it doesn't matter what year it is, you're competing against your peers. You have to be compared to your peers, not people in the future."
During his senior season, Curry was a repeat SWC champion and added a Texas Relays title, finishing his career with 20 jumps of 6-10 or higher and four over 6-11.
Almost 60 years later, Curry calls his 1965-66 freshman year at Baylor a "wonderful, whirlwind, the greatest year of my life," because he also started for Carroll Dawson's freshman men's basketball team.
In his first collegiate meet, Curry jumped at an indoor meet in Fort Worth with 1964 Olympic silver medalist John Thomas and went 6-7 to set the freshman and school records.
"He was like a God to me," Curry said of Thomas, the bronze medalist in 1960. "He and Valeriy Brumel were the two greatest high jumpers in the world at the time. And then, the day after that meet, I scored 23 points against Temple Junior College. Carroll Dawson was quoted saying, 'Well, it was definitely Stan's week.' God knows it was. I was just on top of my game."
After suffering an ankle injury in a non-athletic event, Curry only competed at two other meets that season and then wasn't allowed to play basketball after that year.
"I kind of moped around for a while and got in a little bit of a snitty, teenager attitude, but I couldn't let it go," he said. "I was always angry with (track coach Clyde Hart) over that. Even though I was an immature idiot, I think I would have understood if he had just come and talked to me about it. We hardly ever talked after that."
After finishing his undergrad degree in 1969, Curry was working as a janitor at Baylor that summer when someone threw out the idea of going to law school.
"When I was going to school, all I cared about was jumping over (high jump) bars and playing basketball," he said. "That's all that really drove me. I wasn't that motivated as a student. I had a 3.0 grade-point average when I graduated, but I didn't apply myself. I had a degree in history, and I couldn't even teach because I didn't have a teaching certificate. I figured, 'My life's going nowhere, what am I going to do?'''
Before he had even passed the LSAT, Curry was accepted to Baylor Law School by then-Dean Angus McSwain, eventually serving as one of the editors of the law review and completing his J.D. degree in 1972.
After starting up a "boutique" construction law firm with five or six lawyers, Curry's firm was bought out by Gregory Cokinos in 2009.
"Me and my younger lawyers went with Gregory, and that turned out to be a great move," Curry said of Cokinos/Young. "Because you ask any knowledgeable lawyer what the biggest and best construction law firm is, I think most of them, if they're honest, would tell you our firm was."
Saying he is "basically retired" now, Stan and his wife, Michelle, live on 27 acres in Spring Branch, just north of San Antonio.
"I've got a deer feeder about 200 yards from my house," he said. "Got beautiful deer all the time. Used to have turkeys and quail and everything, but construction and development has driven that away. But it's still a great place. I love it."
At around the same time he got the call about the Baylor Hall of Fame, Stan was going through arguably the toughest time in his life. On June 20, his daughter, Heather McCallie, lost a 16-month battle with sarcoma cancer and passed away in Waco.
"It was the worst experience of my life," he said. "No parent should ever have to bury his children."
The blessing, Stan said, was seeing how family and friends rallied around Heather. Magnolia's Joanna Gaines was a close friend who had a dinner for 20-30 people shipped to the house every Monday and had flowers delivered once a week for over a year.
"Every father, every mother, thinks their child is special. Heather truly was, and had more friends than you can believe," Stan said. "Her celebration of life was the most special one I've ever been to. It's been a hard year and a half, and I'll never get over it. All you do is try to deal with it, because it never goes away."
Joining Curry in this year's Hall of Fame class are fellow track and field athletes Sandy Forsythe Massey and Tiffany Townsend, football's J.D. Walton and Ken Quesenberry, tennis All-American Denes Lukacs, baseball's Max Muncy and longtime Baylor basketball color analyst Pat Nunley.
Tickets to the Nov. 3 banquet at Baylor's Cashion Building Banquet Room are $50 per person, with table sponsorships also available at the green ($600) and gold ($800) levels, and can be purchased by contacting the "B" Association at 254-710-3045 or by email at
tammy_hardin@baylor.edu.
