Longtime John Curtis Christian (Louisiana) coach seeks to tie national record Friday

J.T. Curtis Jr. goes for his 621st career win as Patriots face a title rematch

RIVER RIDGE, LOUISIANA - Back in 1969, no one could have imagined what J.T. Curtis Jr. would accomplish during his career at John Curtis Christian School. 

In his first year as head coach, the Patriots went 0-10, scored a total of 12 points and were shut out eight times. The next year, the Patriots made the playoffs.

By 1973, they reached the quarterfinals. In 1975, the program won its first state championship.

On Friday, Curtis can tie the late John McKissick for all-time coaching wins. If the Patriots defeat Brother Martin in a rematch of the Patriots' 23-0 win in last season's Division I select title game, Curtis will have 621 wins. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Curtis.

He's done it over a 54-year career, compiling a record of 620-78-6. This season still has a ways to go, but if you compute the numbers, it's an average of 11.5 wins to 1.4 losses a year - over five and a half decades.

McKissick - who coached at South Carolina school Summerville - and Curtis are the only two football coaches ever to have won at least 600 ballgames.

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Curtis starred as a lineman at East Jefferson High School, whose campus sits only 3.6 miles away from John Curtis Christian School. He was East Jefferson's first all-state player ever before signing with the University of Arkansas.

J.T.'s father, John T. Curtis Sr., founded the school in 1962. It has remained a family-oriented program.

J.T.'s sons, Jeff and Johnny, were star athletes at the school who went on to play college football before returning to work there.

Football isn't the only sport that J.T. Curtis Jr. has seen tremendous success. Curtis won six state championships as the Patriots' baseball coach, a position he turned over to Jeff years ago.

The Patriots have won a state record 28 football state titles under Curtis, from Class 1A to Class 5A/Division I. Haynesville, with 17 championships, ranks a distant second.

The program began receiving widespread national attention in 2006 when the Patriots traveled to Hoover, Alabama, the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, and rallied from a two-touchdown deficit to win a game broadcast to a national audience.

The late Joe McKnight, a senior running back on that squad, ended the season as the No. 1-ranked recruit in the nation. He later signed with USC.

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In 2012, the Patriots garnered even more national acclaim after being named national champion by five polls. The signature win for that team was a 33-3 blowout of heavily-favored Tampa (Fla.) Plant in the Superdome.

Three players from that team - receiver Malachi Dupre and linebackers Duke Riley and Kenny Young - were selected in the NFL Draft following careers at LSU (Dupre and Riley) and UCLA (Young).

This season, the Patriots stand at 5-2, but very easily could have been undefeated, and perhaps Curtis may have set the record by now. On Sept. 30, they fell to Holy Cross on the game's final play; then the following week, lost in overtime to Archbishop Rummel.

Should Curtis tie the record with a win Friday, he'll have the opportunity to break it in the Patriots' regular-season finale on Nov. 3 against Edna Karr, the state's No. 1 ranked team in the latest SBLive Louisiana football rankings.

Photo of John Curtis coach J.T. Curtis Jr. by Parker Waters, Crescent City Sports 

-- Mike Coppage | @SBLiveLA