Many times, the best players in a sport don’t make the best coaches. Char Morett-Curtiss has been the exception to that for more than three decades now.
Penn State’s field hockey head coach is in her 30th season of leading the Lions. With 483 career wins heading into this season, which include the 34 victories she had in three years as head coach at Boston College, she is closing in on becoming just the fifth Division I coach in her sport to reach 500 victories. She has taken two Penn State teams — 2002 and 2007— to the national-title game and led the program to seven Big Ten regular-season titles and five Big Ten Tournament titles.
All this from someone who is considered one of the best fi eld hockey players in Penn State history. A 1979 alum, Morett-Curtiss is the program’s only three-time fi rst-team All- American and scored 50 goals during her four-year career.
Next month, Morett-Curtiss, a native of Aldan, will be inducted, along with former Penn State football player Craig Fayak, into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Erie.
“I am a very proud Pennsylvanian and have always cherished the opportunity to compete and coach for my state university,” she says. “To be inducted with so many other athletes and coaches who represented Penn State is special to me.”
Following her playing career at Penn State, Morett- Curtiss competed internationally as a member of the US Olympic team. She was on the 1980 team, but wasn’t able to play in the Olympic Games in Moscow because of the US boycott. Four years later, she was on the team that won a bronze medal at the Olympics in Los Angeles.
During that time, she also was a graduate assistant for one season at Penn State, under her coach and mentor Gillian Rattray. She then became an assistant for four seasons at Old Dominion, under head coach Beth Anders, before becoming head coach at Boston College in 1984. Three years later, when Rattray retired, Morett-Curtiss returned to her alma mater to lead the program she had once played for.
“There have been a ton of memorable moments in 30 years, sharing the sideline so long with my assistant, Lisa Love, has been fun!” she says. “Also, when we played for the national championship in 2002 and 2007, both journeys to the Final Four were exciting!”
Among Penn State’s current head coaches, Morett-Curtiss is second only to women’s volleyball head coach Russ Rose for longevity. She has seen and experienced so much change at Penn State during her time.
“I think of the passionate people who have made the athletic program and university so successful, and who have done it with great integrity,” she says. “Joe Paterno and Tim Curley are the first people I think of when I think of the success of our athletic program and the deep personal commitment they have made to our athletes. … I love this university. It’s the people who truly care about our student-athletes that make it easy to enjoy my job every day. And we have the best fans!”
While some may wonder about how much longer she plans to coach, Morett-Curtiss says she actually doesn’t hear that question a lot from players she’s recruiting.
She says, “Hopefully they still see and feel my passion for this program and Penn State!”
