The Global Game: Ron Curry and Other Former JMU Basketball Stars Explore the World Through Hoops

WARSAW, Poland – In spring of 2016, Ronald Curry wrapped up a standout four-year career with James Madison University's men's basketball team. The accomplished guard received all-conference honors and notably contributed to a Dukes' squad that won a game in the NCAA tournament over Long Island before falling to No. 1 seed Indiana.

Ron Curry playing for James Madison University in 2015. Photo provided by JMU.

Not yet 23, the world was at the fingertips for Curry – but the native of New Jersey had no idea how much of that world he would experience.

Nearly eight years since leaving Harrisonburg, the 6-foot-4 Curry has pursued a professional basketball career spanning Slovenia, Germany, Hungary, France, Latvia, and now Portugal. Among active former Dukes, none has matched Curry's longevity in playing professionally across as many countries. He played two full seasons and part of another one in Hungary.

"I have just grown up. I am 30 years old; this is my eighth season. I am a father – I have two young children. I have kind of seen it all," reflects Curry, standing outside his team's dressing room on a chilly night after a recent FIBA Euro Cup game with Sporting Lisbon.

Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is home to about 1.8 million people. The host team, Legia, renowned for its soccer club, successfully resisted a late push by Curry and his Lisbon teammates, securing a 93-84 victory in front of approximately 1,500 fans.

A point guard who can also play off the ball, Curry had a solid all-around game with 11 points, six rebounds and four steals on January 10.

Last season, he played for a French team, but this season he moved to Lisbon, averaging 13 points in the first 11 games of the Portugal-Liga-Betclic. Sporting Lisbon, founded in 1906, has been a training ground for soccer stars like Cristiano Ronaldo. Americans dominate the starting lineups for basketball, though. Curry's U.S. teammates include Mike Moore from North Carolina, Marvin Clark and Marcus Lovett, Jr. from St. John's in New York, and Kenneth Horton, a Central Connecticut standout who has played in 10 countries.

"I really enjoy it. I really enjoy playing with this team, it fits my style," Curry says of the team in the capital of Portugal. "I think the coach really utilizes me well."

Curry (far right), in the huddle with Coach Pedro Nuno Monteiro. Photo by Tony Dias/Global Imagens.

That coach has positive things to say about Curry, who averaged at least 12.1 points per contest in each of his last three seasons at JMU.

"He is having a great season for us. The guy can do a lot of stuff well. He can score, he can pass and he is a great human being," says Pedro Nuno Monteiro, 52, whose coaching career has taken him around the world, including a stint in Canada.

LIVING IT UP IN LISBON
There are other pluses to playing in Lisbon for Curry, who starred at Paul VI High in New Jersey. "It is probably the favorite place I have been so far," he says. "The city is nice. The weather is nice, obviously."

In January, Lisbon, one of the oldest cities in the world, experiences an average high temperature of around 55 degrees Fahrenheit, contrasting with approximately 33 degrees Fahrenheit in Warsaw and 44 degrees Fahrenheit in Harrisonburg.

Playing in Euro Cup contests means, in essence, being part of two leagues at the same time. Most European countries have a domestic schedule with games played on the weekend.

The top few teams in some countries, or at least clubs with the most financial resources, also play in Euro Cup or events that call for midweek games. That meant Sporting Club arrived in Warsaw on January 8, practiced the next day, faced Legia on a Wednesday night, and then flew back to Portugal on January 11.

"I played in the Champions League. Any time you can play twice a week (in Europe) you do not have to have that much practice time. You travel and play, travel and play," Curry says. "It can get a little taxing physically and mentally but it is worth it and I enjoy it a lot."

The biggest difference between pro ball in Europe and NCAA Division I?
"Grown men," says Curry, with a smile, of the Euro leagues. "The style is a little slower, very tactical. You worry about tactics more than up-and-down athleticism. It is like you have a certain game plan and you try to run your stuff to the best of your abilities."

Ron Curry goes up for a dunk while playing in the top pro league in Hungary. Photo courtesy of Nemzeti Bajnoksag in Hungary.

Other former Dukes who have played pro basketball this season include, according to eurobasket.com, Matt Lewis, averaging nearly 10 points per game in a French league; Takal Molson, scoring around 18 points per outing in Switzerland; Mezie Offurum, averaging around 10 points an outing for Chartres in France; Thomas Vodanovich, who has played several years in Australia and had 35 points in a game in December; and Andrey Semenov, who is playing in Syria after a long tenure in his native Russia. Semenov played in 132 games at JMU – a school record that current player Julien Wooden has a chance to surpass soon. Vodanovich has also played in Luxembourg, New Zealand and the Philippines while Offurum, a key player for the Dukes last season, is a rookie pro from Georgetown Prep in Maryland. Players that head to Europe, generally, can make much more money than playing in the G League, though the latter has them closer to home and for a possible NBA call-up.

Lewis, from Woodbridge, VA, was the CAA Player of the Year in 2021 and played two seasons in the NBA G League.

Matt Lewis playing for JMU in 2021. Photo provided by JMU.

JMU products who played as recently as the 2022-23 campaign include Juwann James, averaging 10.7 points per game in Switzerland, Andre Nation, with experience in Ireland and Germany, and Charles Falden, a Richmond, Va. native who played last season in North Macedonia.

Then there is Dimitrije Cabarkapa, a former Dukes' hoopster from basketball-rich Novi Sad, Serbia in southern Europe.

"Dimitrije is not playing pro, but he recently graduated with his doctorate at the University of Kansas and is the Associate Director of the Jayhawk Athletic Performance Lab. What makes it interesting, is that they have given him the funding and permission to open a satellite lab in his home country of Serbia. He travels back to Serbia multiple times a year to build out this lab in conjunction with his lab in Lawrence, Kansas," according to 2016 grad Joe Kuykendall, a former JMU student manager who is the general manager of the Founding Fathers, a team made up mostly of former Dukes.

Another former JMU player from Serbia, 2017 graduate Ivan Lukic, is the video coordinator for the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA.

JMU WOMEN EXCEL
On the women's side, former JMU players Caroline Germond and Kamiah Smalls, who has WNBA experience with Indiana and Minnesota, are in France while Jazmon Gwathmey has played this season in Italy after earlier stops in Spain and Hungary. Smalls has also played in Poland and Gwathmey, averaging nearly 16 points per game in late December, has been part of the national team with Puerto Rico and played in the WNBA for San Antonio and Indiana.

Kirby Burkholder, photo provided.

Kirby Burkholder, the CAA Player of the Year with JMU in 2014, recently announced her retirement as a player.

A local product of Turner Ashby High from Bridgewater, she tried out for Washington of the WNBA then played at the pro level in Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Puerto Rico and for Athletes Unlimited. She turned 32 on January 15.

"It allowed me to live and experience other parts of the world in ways deeper than just visiting ever would," she wrote on Instagram earlier this month about basketball. The same could be said of Curry and the other former Dukes who have seen the world through hoops.

Ron Curry with JMU's TBT alumni team, the Founding Fathers.

Curry played for The Founding Fathers in The Basketball Tournament in 2022. He keeps with some of the other former Dukes who have played overseas, including Nation.

And Curry, part of the title team in Hungary in 2019, has followed the current JMU team that was ranked in the top 25 nationally earlier this season under Coach Mark Byington.

"They are headed in the right direction. You could kind of see it once they got Coach Byington there and how they improved every year," Curry says. "It is just good to see them have success."
Curry has found success as well – thousands of miles from his Division I days in the Shenandoah Valley.

Editor's note: Harrisonburg native David Driver is the former Sports Editor of the Daily News-Record and is the author of "Hoop Dreams in Europe: American Basketball Players Building Careers Overseas." The book is available on the website of Amazon and at the book link at daytondavid.com. He has interviewed American men and women basketball players in nearly 20 countries and lived with his family for three years in Hungary. Driver has covered JMU athletics in some form as a free-lance writer since the 1980s.

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