Mike Curta has one of the state’s most gifted basketball players in Antoine Walker and one of its best all-around athletes in Donovan McNabb, but the Mt. Carmel coach’s favorite player is probably Gilberto Medina.
Medina isn’t a star, nor even a starter. If Curta went by ability alone, it’s doubtful he would even be on the powerful Mt. Carmel team.
He’s there because Curta sees himself in the 6-foot senior guard. Medina was cut from the basketball program as a freshman, a sophomore and a junior, but he never quit trying.
Neither did Curta, who was cut from the basketball team twice in junior high and his first three years at Naperville North. Curta still remembers his senior year . . . the long walk to the coach’s office to see if his name was finally on the list of survivors . . . the familiar ache, and tears, when it wasn’t . . . the long walk home to tell his parents, again.
“I guess I was a glutton for punishment,” he said. “My senior year, it was kind of gut-wrenching. I thought my chances were good. I remember I went back to check the list a second time. I thought maybe I had missed my name.”
It’s a long way from basketball refugee to head coach of a state power at age 26, but by the end of that disappointing 1984-85 senior year, Curta had his heart set on becoming a basketball coach.
He succeeded because of raw determination and some helping hands along the way. The biggest boosts came from Naperville North assistant girls basketball coach Alan Harris and De Paul coach Joey Meyer.
Harris noticed how upset Curta was after being cut as a sophomore and made him a manager on the 1983 girls team that reached the Class AA quarterfinals in Champaign. For two seasons, Curta soaked up every bit of basketball knowledge he could get from Harris and head girls coach Dale Shymkewich.
“If basketball was based on effort, Mike would have been an All-American,” Harris said. “I don’t know anyone who loves the game more than he does.”
As a senior, Curta coached youth basketball in Naperville. Then he enrolled at De Paul, where Meyer gave him a four-year tuition scholarship as a team manager. Curta had been attending former De Paul coach Ray Meyer’s summer basketball camp in Wisconsin since 7th grade.
According to Joey Meyer, Curta managed quite nicely at De Paul.
“I’ve always said our managers make the most successful people because they have to do everything,” he said. “A manager can be as involved as he wants with X’s and O’s, and Mike wanted to be. He’s just a hard worker. Even when he was young, if something needed to be done, he’d do it. He was never afraid to get his hands dirty.”
Curta became a teacher and freshman basketball coach at Mt. Carmel after graduating from De Paul in 1989. In 1991, he became an assistant to head varsity coach Paul Rybarczyk.
Rybarczyk resigned unexpectedly right before Christmas, and Curta found himself in charge. It was a tough situation for anyone, let alone someone who was 24 years old. Curta sought counsel from Meyer and others, then braced himself for the Kankakee holiday tournament.
“It was like a blackout the entire game,” he said of his head-coaching debut, a victory over Calumet. “I was not doing a lot of coaching. It was something I can’t recall, a blur.”
He admits being intimidated at first but still believed he could handle the job.
“I thought I had learned a great deal from Paul and Coach Joe and Al Harris,” he said. “The kids were the key. They were ready to hang tough and make the best of it.”
Curta and his team have grown and prospered together, no small achievement given the great expectations that burden any program that has an Antoine Walker. They finished that ’91-92 season 18-10 and were 23-6 last year, losing to Thornton in the sectional finals. Mt. Carmel is 22-3 this season. It opens Class AA tournament play Tuesday against Oak Lawn favored to reach the Elite Eight in Champaign.
Curta says he has offset his lack of experience with an ability to communicate with his players. Hanging around locker rooms and coaches’ offices as a manager gave him valuable insight into how both players and coaches think.
“Maybe I didn’t know enough about basketball, but in dealing with kids I felt comfortable that I could relate,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 thing you have to do. If you respect them and listen to them, they respect you and listen to you.”
One way Curta shows his respect is by never posting a cut list. He gives players the bad news himself.
“I talk to them face to face,” he said. “I hated that list. I would never want a kid to feel that way.”
Being cut, though, made Curta stronger and, in the long run, a better coach. A better person, too.
Gilberto Medina is proof of that. Curta not only kept him, he started him against Rockford Lutheran Feb. 19 in Mt. Carmel’s regular-season finale. Medina responded by sinking back-to-back three-point shots in the opening minutes of a 76-62 road victory.
“Being on the team means a lot to me,” Medina said. “I love the game, and I always wanted to be with a team, have a uniform on.
“I felt pretty badly when I’d gotten cut, but I couldn’t give up. It’s a dream I always had to play basketball.”
Curta knows the feeling.
“You know how a dad lives through his kids?” he said. “I kind of live through Gilberto Medina. I always wanted it to be me. It’s nice to see a kid who wants to play that badly live out his dream.”
Nice, too, to see Curta finally capture his heart’s desire.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” he said, contemplating his basketball ascent. “I really think I’m blessed.
“It’s difficult to describe. I think back to walking home and feeling so down in high school. It’s come full circle. It’s a dream come true . . . just unbelievable.”
