For USF women's basketball coach Kristy Curry, it's about grit, love, and gratitude

Upon sitting down with Kristy Curry, USF's new women's basketball coach, for the first time a couple of days ago, several woirds come to mind.

She's engaging.

Encouraging.

Affirming.

Empowering.

It's easy to see why players gravitate to her, and once they arrive, her record shows she knows how to use them. In 28 seasons as a head coach, her teams have a 554-322 (.632) career record and a combined 16 20-win seasons at Alabama, Texas Tech, and Purdue.

She has an easy-going southern drawl, courtesy of her hometown of Olla, Louisiana.

All of this was a little off-setting at first because the picture USF used on Twitter to welcome her to town showed her in, shall we say, a more intense frame of mind.

But that's part of the package, too.

Hence, the core values she preaches to her players: Grit, Love, Gratitude.

"That's just been something that we've developed throughout the course of our career. It's not only the way that we try and work in our program every day, but it's also how we try and raise our family. It's a fabric of who we are," she said. "I learned a long time ago that you can be the hardest worker in the room, the court, and the community.

"Grit, it's a separator every day in life, whether it's being a mom, whether it's being a wife, or family member. In a professional life, grit is a really important factor. And then we love -- we love each other. We don't judge. 
We love the front of our chest more than the back. We love the opportunity. Gosh, the game's given me so much, and I just love the game."

And then there's gratitude.

"With gratitude, just grateful for the opportunity to be able to play and work and coach a game that we all love. We're thankful, very thankful for that," she said. "The thing with gratitude, too, is giving back to a community. We're so thankful to be part of this community, this university community,

"How can we give back to a fan base that gives so much to us? And that's by being really special for 94 feet and representing our university and the family the way it should be."

With the exception of last season, when Michele Woods-Baxter served as the interim head coach, this program has been under Jose Fernandez's control since he took over in 2000. That includes scheduling, which meant loading up on some of the best non-conference opponents in the land. Bulls fans know all about the games against UConn, South Carolina, Duke, and so on.

I asked Curry if scheduling like that will continue.

"To be real honest with you, when we walked in the door, three or four weeks ago, we had nine openings (on the schedule). 
It's really difficult to do anything that late. Having so many openings, we just had to piece it together here late, but that's something that we're going to continue to try and do. When it's so late, that makes a little bit more difficult, but, we certainly believe in that," she said.

This all happened pretty fast. One day Curry was coaching her Alabama team in the NCAA tournament, defeating Rhode Island before falling 69-68 to Louisville on March 23.

A day later, USF announced it had hired Curry. -- a move that made the women's basketball world take notice.

"I just was focused on our team in Alabama and trying to get past that second round. We had lost a heartbreaker the year before in Maryland, so we were doing everything that we could to make sure that that senior class finished strong," she said.

"Then you lose, and then you have an opportunity to kind of evaluate really quickly."

She is represented by Priority Sports and Entertainment. Ten days before she was hired at USF, Rob Higgins, the CEO of Athletics, announced a nationwide search for a permanent coach. While Curry concentrated on the court, things were moving off of it.

Once Alabama's season was over, they moved at warp speed.

"After the Louisville game, I hear from Rob, and he said he's going to be in Tuscaloosa early the next morning. The way he went about it was with a tremendous amount of class, and the same way we tried to handle it from the moment that that buzzer went off," she said.

"It certainly wasn't something we were thinking about because we were pretty focused on what we were doing, to compete the way we did that weekend. But now, it's just amazing to be here. Rob is an incredible leader. I always say that association brings on assimilation, and he's the kind of person that you would want to be around every single day to collaborate with. He's a visionary leader. 
He is unique, He's special."

So, the Curry era begins. She had to fill multiple roster spots in a short amount of time, but everything is settled now. Off-season practice is under way, which means the time of building toward November has begun.

"You're not going to be the same team in January that you were in November." she said. "We have a lot of new faces new faces and we'll have to see how those things all come together."

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