It helped him so much that by the time he graduated from Georgetown in 1988, he had scored 2,381 points and grabbed 1,035 rebounds. He was the first Georgetown player to score more than 2,000 points and have 1,000 or more rebounds. No player has a higher career total in points and rebounds than Currens.
On top of that, he started every game for four years.
That's why Currens certainly deserved to be part of the 10th class inducted into the Georgetown College Athletic Hall of Fame last weekend.
Started every game for four years
"It's quite an honor. A lot of people don't realize the caliber of athletes that have come out of Georgetown, especially in basketball and football," Currens said.
Currens still laughs when asked how he managed to start every game for four years, a rarity in any sport at any level.
"My freshman year, we had a 6-10 center out of eastern Kentucky and a 6-8 guy from Cincinnati. But one caught mononucleosis and one had back surgery," he said. "Coach Reid said he needed a center, so I saw that as my chance to play. Once I started that first game, I never missed a game."
He recalls only coming close to missing one game.
"I loved basketball. I can still remember the only time I thought I might miss a game was when I had a real bad ankle sprain," he said. "I sat with my foot in a cooler of ice all night in my dorm room. I slept in a chair. They told me I wouldn't play, but I was determined to play and help the team.
"I was pretty sore, but they bandaged me up and I played. My parents raised me to do something with heart and give everything you had. I figured I owed it to them at Georgetown to give all I had since they had invested a scholarship in me."
Now Currens, who works in Harrodsburg and lives in Lawrenceburg, limits his basketball activity to some pickup games at church or coaching teams his son, 11, or daughter, 9, are on.
Does consulting work
"I will be 42 in June. I can't do everything I could before," he said.
Currens bought into a company his brother owned that painted water towers in 1990 after a brief stint of playing professional basketball in Germany. "The competition in Germany wasn't as good as I played against in college. It just wasn't for me. I thought it was a waste of time," he said.
Now he does consulting work for the company that bought the business his brother started and he joined after college.
What he enjoys the most is watching young athletes. He was also embarrassed to talk about his accomplishments and Hall of Fame induction because he didn't want to take away from today's high school sports stars.
"I can still remember (former Advocate-Messenger sports editor) Bill Vaught coming to Harrodsburg and doing interviews with me and my team," Currens said. "I appreciated that then and know what good coverage meant to us.
"I have been blessed with so much that I would rather see young kids get the publicity and build their self-esteem like it did for me many, many years ago. For old people like me, the publicity is nice, but I appreciate the coverage for the kids even more because they are our future."
Still, it doesn't hurt to remind today's stars that there were stars before them, and Georgetown certainly made a wise move by honoring Currens, because few area athletes have had better collegiate careers than the one he had.
