Curry Right at Home

Blessed with incredible size and athleticism, Eddy Curry is establishing himself as one of the NBA's most effective offensive weapons around the basket. (David Sherman/NBAE Getty Images)

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09/01: Curry Sets the Record Straight

Posted October 8, 2004

Call it a pregame ritual, or superstition or simply a habit. Some NBA players insist on particulars such as eating a specific meal or listening to a certain type of music before stepping foot on the court.

Eddy Curry, the Bulls' massive 6-foot 11, 285-pound center with Hulk-like curves and eyes that can burn a hole in you with a simple stare, has his own little tradition. He calls his mom.

Hours before each home game, Curry enters the Bulls’ locker room at the United Center, drops off his bags and greets his teammates, then hits the speed dial on his cell phone. "Mom, are you going to be on time tonight?" quotes a laughing Gayle Curry about how each conversation with her son begins.

"Usually he calls me two or three times a day. When I arrive, he always walks over to my seat and gives me a little kiss. He's real close with his Dad too. But I guess it's just different with Mom."

In just a few short years, Eddy Curry’s life has changed in dramatic fashion—beginning in high school where he became one of the most heavily recruited basketball players in the nation, to leapfrogging over hundreds of college scholarship offers and landing as the starting center for his hometown team—the Chicago Bulls.

The one constant that has remained through all of this madness is his family. "It's crazy when someone looks at me in awe because of what I do," explains Eddy. "To my family and friends, I'm just a normal guy."

Normal is all the Curry family could ever wish for when Eddy was born as a premature baby, weighing only 4 pounds 12 ounces. "Back then, we weren't concerned about his height, we just wanted to make sure he was healthy," says Gayle.

For a long time, people believed Eddy and his sister Nicole (11 months older) were twins since they were about the same height. But what seemed like overnight, young Eddy zoomed past his older sister and kept growing, eventually becoming the biggest kid in school. And just as quickly, he grew increasingly self-conscious about his appearance, always slumping to disguise his height.

"One day Eddy came home from school very frustrated and upset because some of the kids had been teasing him. He said he wanted to chop off his feet," laughs Gayle who, at over six-feet tall herself, says she was also teased as a youngster. "Eddy just didn't recognize the benefits of his height."

With love and support from his mom, Gayle, and his family by his side, Curry appreciates the fact that he has a lot to smile about.

Of course at the time for a 12-year old boy, there really weren't many benefits. His first interest in sports was gymnastics, but his school coaches told him he was too tall to ever be successful. To make matters worse, the Currys had to change cars often to accommodate Eddy's increasing size. The family ride went from a Corsica to a Cadillac to a van, where Eddy’s dad removed the middle seat so his son could sit comfortably.

When Eddy discovered basketball in 8th grade, he still wasn't exactly in a comfort zone.

"At the time, I wasn't serious about playing ball and I would miss a lot of games," he admits. "I was a little embarrassed because I wasn’t very good, but everyone expected me to be great because I was tall."

However by the time he entered high school, he took the game very seriously and everything began to click. Coaches from all around were paying a lot of attention to him, and he was invited to many different camps around the country. "Probably when Eddy was in 9th grade is when I first realized he was going to be special in basketball," says Gayle.

Before long, everyone in Chicago knew all about Eddy Curry. He was a man among boys who would appear on the local news on a nightly basis, and he had offers to go to almost any university he so desired. Talk of him going directly to the NBA began in the middle of his junior year. It seemed like Eddy Curry was all anyone ever wanted to talk about.

Meanwhile "on the opposite end of the globe," as Eddy likes to say, future teammate and best friend, Tyson Chandler, was racking up just as many accolades and awards for Dominguez High School in Southern California.

"At first Tyson and I kind of looked at each other as enemies even though we didn't know one another," admits Eddy. "The national rankings would go back and forth—‘Tyson Chandler’s No. 1 and Eddy Curry’s No. 2.’ The next week another one would come out and it would say ‘Eddy Curry’s No. 1 and Tyson’s No. 2.’ It seemed like we were always being compared to one another."

Eventually, both players led their teams to their respective high school state championship games. For Curry, it was a bittersweet moment as his team was upset by northwest suburban Schaumburg High School.

"Of course I wanted to win that game, but looking back, I think everything was coming too easy. I think that loss kind of brought me back to earth," Eddy says philosophically. "Maybe if we had won I would have come to the NBA with a real big head, acting like I was immortal or something. I would have fallen on my butt real fast."

Although his team lost the state championship, Eddy still had good reason to hold his head high that season as he was named high school basketball’s Mr. Illinois, and he accepted a full athletic scholarship to attend DePaul University. But the seductive lure of going straight to the NBA continued to weigh heavily on his mind. Thus he turned to his family for advice. His mother would pose this question to all the college coaches who knocking on their door recruiting her son, "What would you do if your child was in Eddy’s position?" Many answered honestly, telling her that if Eddy had a chance to go high in the NBA Draft, he should go.

This could be a big year for Curry, who reported for Training Camp this week in the best shape of his life.

"Ultimately it was Eddy's decision [to go pro or not] because in the end he would be the one who would have to live with the consequences," says Gayle.

During his high school senior year, Eddy went to a number of Bulls games and was introduced to Bulls guard Jamal Crawford. After getting to know each other, they exchanged phone numbers. "One day I called Jamal and he told me he was sitting with (then Bulls GM) Jerry Krause," laughs Eddy. "So I joked, 'Tell Jerry I want to play for his team.' "

The message must have been delivered because with the fourth overall pick of the 2001 NBA Draft, Commissioner David Stern proclaimed Eddy Curry as the newest member of Chicago Bulls.

Although it was competing at the Olympics as a member of the U.S gymnastics team, and not playing in the NBA that Eddy Curry dreamed of doing as a child, he does admit to sometimes fantasizing about playing for his hometown Chicago Bulls.

"You didn't really have to be a huge basketball fan to dream about that,” admits Eddy with a grin. “It would have been the ultimate dream to be a part of what was going on here when Michael Jordan and the Bulls were winning all those championships.

"Shaq (Shaquille O'Neil) was my guy, but Michael Jordan was the one everyone wanted to be. He was everything on and off the court."

From his first day as a pro, Curry’s first order of business was to make a body transformation. He arrived at the Bulls practice facility (the Berto Center) weighing over 300 pounds and he knew he desperately needed to tone up and trim the flab. That summer he began working out with Michael Jordan's personal trainer and quickly lost 26 pounds while also adding some muscle.

"I never really lifted weights in high school. Usually when you're a star athlete in high school, you don't have to work very hard," Eddy honestly admits. "But my rookie season was a different story. It was hard getting knocked around every night by bigger and better players. Most of the time I was also getting killed in practice by my teammates, too—especially Brad Miller. Physically, it was a tough adjustment. I hit the wall several times."

Mentally, Eddy also had to readjust his thinking. This was the first time in his life that he wasn't the main attraction and he often found himself watching and learning from the bench. At first, that didn't sit well with his ego, so he made the rookie mistake of airing out some of his frustrations to the local media rather then discussing the issue with the Bulls’ coaching staff. But Eddy quickly worked out all his differences.

"We worked through all of that. Looking back, I honestly wasn't ready to play NBA ball," Eddy admits. "I have great respect for my old Bulls coach, Bill Cartwright, for getting me to be the type of player that I am today. It really helped me that Bill was also a big man in this league and that he knew a lot about my position and emotionally what I was going through as a person."

Because of his celebrity, people recognize Eddy right away when he's out in public. Even though he still can't quite get used to it, he finds the situation very amusing. Recently he told his mom he would like to buy her a new car, so she went on her own to visit a few local dealerships, but sometimes her presence was barely acknowledged by the salesmen.

If Curry and Chandler take significant steps towards reaching their potential this season, Bulls fans will be in for a treat.

"At this one place, nobody even bothered to ask if I needed help," says Gayle. "Two days later Eddy and I stopped by that dealership and every jumped at the chance to wait on us. We ended up walking out and doing business elsewhere. I’ve always stressed to my kids that it's best to treat everyone equally because you never know who you're dealing with. I’m proud to say that both Eddy and Nicole live by that thinking too."

As far as looking at the Bulls' future, Eddy believes the sky is the limit as long as everyone strives to get better by working hard.

"In my life, I've made it this far without having come up against any major road blocks," says Eddy. "A lot of guys are just satisfied to get here. But I'm not. There’s a lot more I want to accomplish."

Like any mother eager to see her child succeed, Gayle Curry sits proudly at the United Center for every home game. She hears all of the cheers, and also all of the boos. She fully understands there isn't a basketball arena in America that doesn't host a few hecklers. "Fans have a right to their opinions, but if you’re sitting by me and you constantly repeat that opinion—and it’s not a good one about my son—I'm going to intervene," states Gayle without hesitation, but also with a laugh. "I’ll just turn around and ask, 'Excuse me, what's your child doing right now?'”

By Conrad Theodore