Bob McCurdy

Bob McCurdy
College Richmond
Conference Southern
Sport Basketball
Position Shooting guard
Jersey # 32
Career 1971–1975
Nationality American
Born c. 1952
High school Deer Park High School
Long Island, New York
Former school(s) Virginia
Honors
  • First Team All-Conference (1975)
  • NCAA scoring champion (1975)
  • University of Richmond Hall of Fame (1999)

Robert "Bob" McCurdy (born c. 1952) is an American businessman who is best known for his time as a college basketball player at the University of Richmond from 1973 to 1975. He was the nation's leading scorer during his senior season of 1974–75, averaging 32.9 points per game for the Richmond Spiders.[1]

Basketball career

College

Virginia

McCurdy is native of Deer Park, New York, attended Deer Park High School and graduated in 1970.[2] He enrolled at the University of Virginia on a basketball scholarship, but in 1970–71 college freshmen were ineligible to play varsity basketball, so McCurdy had to play on Virginia's freshman team.[2] He claims to have scored 30 points against North Carolina's Bobby Jones and 40 against Maryland's Tom McMillan en route to a 38 points per game average that season.[2] He then played for one varsity season as a Virginia Cavalier, but Bill Gibson, the coach who had recruited him, left the school.[2] McCurdy made the decision to transfer to a different school and chose Richmond.

Richmond

Due to NCAA transfer eligibility rules, McCurdy was forced to sit out for one full year before suiting up for Richmond. In his junior season in 1973–74, he averaged approximately 24 points per game.[2] McCurdy was the team's second leading scorer behind Aron Stewart, who averaged 26.5 points per game, and was named to the All-Southern Conference Second Team.[3] The following year, the last of his collegiate career, he increased his scoring average to 32.9 per game and led all of Division I in scoring.[3][4] He scored a total of 855 points that season, and on February 26 he had a career high 53-point outing against Appalachian State.[3] Both the single season and game totals are still school records.[3] McCurdy was an All-Southern Conference First Team selection, and the Associated Press named him to their All-America Third Team. In just two seasons at Richmond, he scored 1,347 points.[3]

Kevin Eastman, the starting point guard alongside shooting guard McCurdy, was in awe at his ability to score. Many years later, Eastman was quoted as saying, "Looking back now, it was a remarkable feat. [McCurdy] had virtually no quickness. He didn't really have dribbling skills. He couldn't jump that high. He couldn't run real fast. He was a prime example of how will and enthusiasm and effort allowed him to rise to another level."[2] Jokingly, Eastman added, "He worked harder than anybody else on the team, but he was very focused on one skill, and that was shooting. I'm not sure I saw him in a defensive stance all year, and the one or two assists that he got were mistakes."[2]

NBA

McCurdy was selected in the eighth round (132nd overall) in the 1975 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks.[5] He never played a game in the league, however, and it is speculated that the constant cortisone injections into his foot during his senior year may have scared off teams from giving him a chance.[6]

Business career

With professional basketball out of the picture, McCurdy focused on becoming a successful businessman. Later in life, after admitting to skipping classes while in college to work on his jump shot, he said, "I was almost incoherent when I got out of college. Here I was, hoping to be a businessman, and I couldn't even talk basketball."[6] So he hired a tutor to catch him back up to speed in statistics, and within a few years he was a successful employee at Katz Marketing Solutions.[6] He eventually moved his way all the way up to his current position of company president.

Personal

McCurdy resides in Westport, Connecticut and is married to wife Cindy.[6] They have four children together, including a son, Sean, who was also a successful basketball player. Sean played at St. Anthony High School for Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley, Sr.[7] Both Bob and Sean were mentioned in the book The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty by author Adrian Wojnarowski.[2] Sean was a starter for the undefeated and national champion St. Anthony Friars in 2003–04. He accepted a scholarship to play basketball at Arkansas, but after two seasons transferred to William & Mary (ironically, a big rival of his father's alma mater, Richmond) to finish his collegiate basketball career.[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "2010–11 NCAA Men's Basketball Records" (PDF). 2010–11 NCAA Men's Basketball Media Guide. National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2010. Retrieved January 18, 2011.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Wojnarowski, Adrian (February 21, 2005). The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty. Gotham. pp. 102–103. ISBN 978-1-59240-102-4.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "University of Richmond Athletic Hall Of Fame". richmondspiders.com. University of Richmond. 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Scoring Sensations". sportsillustrated.cnn.com. Sports Illustrated. June 25, 2003. Retrieved January 18, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Milwaukee Bucks Draft Picks". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2011.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Wolff, Alexander (November 20, 1989). "The Lost Generation: From 1971 to 1984, No Major College Scoring Champ Made the Grade in the NBA". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved January 18, 2011.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Sabin, Rainer (March 1, 2009). "After best-laid plans went astray, he found fit at W&M". The Virginian-Pilot. Retrieved January 18, 2011.