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University of Houston Athletics
Curl Receives Extension To Contract
5/8/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
May 8, 2002
One week after extending the contract of his head men's basketball coach, University of Houston Director of Athletics Dave Maggard announced today he has given Joe Curl, the head women's basketball coach, an extension to his contract. Curl's new contract will run through 2007.
"We needed to reward Joe on his outstanding accomplishment in rebuilding our women's basketball program," said Maggard. "Our desire is to stabilize and increase the continuity of the women?s basketball program, and this extension provides us with this needed stability."
Curl concurs that the extension brings stability to the Lady Cougar program.
"I really feel strongly about the UH community as a whole," commented Curl. "It is important to our fans and administrators that someone wants to be here, and I certainly do.
"We are moving in the right direction. When I go into a home to recruit a potential student-athlete, that player knows that I'm going to be here for a while. I care about that, and in the long run (the extension and its positive effects) will take this program to the next level."
This past season Curl guided the Lady Cougars to a 26-8 mark and a runner-up finish in the Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT), losing to Oregon in the final seconds in Eugene. The 26 wins matched the most ever wins in school history, and the winning percentage of .765 is the best in the UH women?s basketball record books.
In completing his fourth season at Houston, Curl has completely turned around the fortunes of the Lady Cougar program. Prior to his arrival in 1998-99, the Lady Cougars were in the midst of six straight losing seasons and had not had back-to-back winning campaigns since the early '90s. Despite struggles in his first two years, Curl was able to recruit and retain his type of student-athlete, and the fruits of his hard work culminated with a winning record in 2000-01 (19-13) and a trip to the WNIT.
In 2001-02, the Lady Cougars finished second in Conference USA and reached the semifinals of a very competitive league tournament. In the WNIT, Houston knocked off Rice and Miami (Fla.) at home, and then reeled off consecutive road wins over Valparaiso and Virginia Tech before eventually falling by two to the Ducks in the Championship game.
Curl?s overall coaching record now stands at 195-164, while his Houston mark improves to 57-64.
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