Mom provides inspiration for Dan Curran's NFL quest

Dan Curran is a tough guy. Always has been. How many high school kids lift cars by the bumper to get stronger?
On the football field, the chiseled 6-foot, 242-pound Chelmsford resident has always been tougher than nails.
But those two words -- spoken from a Saints Memorial Hospital doctor to his beloved mother -- buckled his knees when he received the news.
“It was like my world ended. She was everything to us,” said Curran, a 28-year-old professional football player via Chelmsford High School and the University of New Hampshire. “To be honest with you, you felt like your world was crashing down. We always had a special bond.”
All eyes were on Kay Curran at the Lowell hospital when the doctor delivered the news last October. Lung cancer?
It didn't seem fair -- she never smoked a cigarette in her life.
But Kay Curran didn't break down when the doctor left.
“I really feel bad for the guy. He's got a tough job to do,” she said to her family.
Five months later, on March 4, 2005, she died at her home, at the age of 69, surrounded by those she loved, including Dan.
More than 1,000 people attended
services. Earlier this week, a short distance from Simonian Alumni Stadium, where he brought fans, including his mother, to their feet at Chelmsford High, Dan Curran shook his head at that memory.
“I don't even know 1,000 people. Do you?” he asked.
For a while, the football fire which has always burned so intensely inside Dan Curran was extinguished. Football? How could he return to a game that requires so much physical and mental preparation when the loss of his mother left him so hollow?
Maybe he should hang up his pads. High school star. College star. Four-year Arena Football League standout. Maybe it was enough. But what about his dream of playing in the National Football League?
The dream is alive. He's working out six days a week in hopes of landing an invitation to his second NFL camp.
He's not a quitter, a trait he inherited from his mother.
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From perfect to purgatory
A year ago, Curran was on top of the world.
He was coming off the best season of his career for the New Orleans VooDoo. During the 2004 campaign, Curran became the face of the VooDoo. Kids wore his shirts and the fullback/linebacker was one of three finalists for the Ironman Award, given to the AFL's Most Valuable Player.
Four NFL teams -- Houston, Kansas City, Atlanta and New Orleans -- talked to his agent before he signed his first NFL contract with the Saints and received a decent-sized signing bonus, especially for a fullback.
During the summer, he and his wife, Megan, became the proud parents of a son, Ty Thomas.
His life was “perfect.”
At New Orleans' training camp, Curran was not in awe. During the Saints' first preseason game, he made his first and only NFL carry, gaining five yards and a first down against the Jets.
Running down Lambeau Field for special teams duty against Green Bay was a thrill, but Curran was a late cut of the Saints.
He was in talks with Atlanta about signing with the Falcons when he received the devastating news about his mother. Suddenly, football wasn't so important. He never signed with Atlanta and later rejected an offer to play with an NFL Europe team.
“My priority was not football. It just wasn't where my heart was,” he said.
He wanted to be with his mother. Curran, who has three older brothers and one older sister, savored every moment.
“She went without a lot of stuff to make sure we had everything,” he said. “She made lunches for me when I was a senior in high school. It's like ‘Leave It To Beaver' stuff.”
It's a funny line, but Curran was closer to crying than laughing when delivering it.
Kay Curran, a Tewksbury High School Hall of Fame basketball player, made her children the center of her universe, especially when her husband, Thomas, died of a massive heart attack when Dan was 8.
Thomas Curran, a captain on the Chelmsford Fire Department, was still tired from helping battle a large out-of-town fire when he brought Dan to a hockey tryout the next day. Minutes later, Thomas Curran dropped to the ice in front of his son.
A registered nurse, Kay Curran sought a way to be home more with her children. Later, she cleaned houses to make ends meet. And, Dan Curran says proudly, she was always a person who thought of others before herself.
The life of a single parent is never easy. But Kay Curran never complained. She just sacrificed. And sacrificed some more. She never remarried. In fact, she never dated again.
“My dad was the love of her life,” Dan Curran said.
When her final moments came, Kay Curran looked death straight in the eye and didn't blink.
“She told me she was going to see my dad,” Dan Curran said.
The last time she saw her son play football in person was the spring of 2004. New Orleans was hosting Carolina, and Kay Curran was stunned to see so many VooDoo fans were wearing Curran's name on their shirts.
“I'll never forget the look on her face,” he said.
“I think him making it (in pro football) was a huge thing for her,” said Dan's brother, Sean. “But at the same time, when he came home, whether he scored five touchdowns or didn't get in the game, he still had to cut the grass and shovel the snow.”
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Motivated by memories
Curran just wants a shot, a legitimate shot, to make an NFL roster this fall. His agent has talked to the Buffalo Bills. If it doesn't work out, he has a fall-back plan -- he recently became a certified financial planner.
“I respect all those (NFL) guys. But there's no fear there,” he said. “I know if I get (a chance) I'll be ready. I feel like I'm a better football player than I've ever been.”
When his workouts reach their toughest points, Curran derives motivation from his mother.
“She was one of the most competitive people I've ever met,” he said. “When she was in her 60s and playing Wiffleball with her grandchildren she would be out there diving (for the ball).”
Sean Curran remembers his mother playing street hockey with his son, then 7, and refusing to surrender a soft goal.
When Kay Curran was inducted into the Tewksbury High School Hall of Fame in 1997, she brought the audience to its feet when she said, “People say that some day my son Dan will be inducted into the Chelmsford High Hall of Fame. But I'll always have him beat because now I'm in the Tewksbury High Hall of Fame.”
It's a memory Dan Curran cherishes. One of thousands.

BARRY SCANLON, Sun Staff