Terry Curtis calls it precautionary. Others call it superstition.

To help ensure success, the winningest high school football coach in Alabama history insists on keeping coins found heads up, carrying lucky rocks in his pants pocket and during games wearing dilapidated 25-year-old shoes and 21-year-old boxer shorts, which have been repeatedly patched. He meticulously crafts his play sheet, then stuffs it in his pocket and rarely consults it. He and his wife Jeanie must eat the same food for dinner at the same restaurant once a week as long as his team is winning.

During one of his 15-0 seasons, Curtis, his wife and another couple ate at a local restaurant before the season started and Curtis had a banana milkshake. When the eatery ran out of bananas one week, Curtis’ friend went to a grocery store and brought bananas back to the restaurant so they could make his milkshake.

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Before one game at Murphy, when the team buses made a wrong turn near Ladd-Peebles Stadium, Curtis made the buses turn around, go back to school and start over. Nowadays, he won’t sit on the team bus at all on road trips, instead commandeering assistant coach Eddie Roberts’ truck and riding behind the bus.

But this season, his 25th at UMS-Wright, those rituals haven’t provided the kind of success Curtis is accustomed to as the Bulldogs are 6-4.

“We’ve been eating at a lot of different places, I can tell you that,” said Curtis, whose latest venture was to an Italian restaurant for salmon and pasta.

For a repeat serving of salmon and pasta next week, Curtis must summon all his coaching acumen and all the other help he can get Friday when UMS-Wright travels to Lineville in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs to meet No. 3-ranked Central Clay County (10-0) in a historic first meeting with Danny Horn, the man who is poised to take Curtis’ place atop the list of the state’s coaching greats.

It’s the first time in state history two coaches with this many victories (705) and state championships (16) between them finally have a rendezvous.

It’s a clash of city vs. country but the coaches’ philosophies and their records are remarkably similar, time tested and pure.

So much alike

Curtis, 73, an offensive genius renowned for staying plays ahead of the opposition, is the all-time leader in victories at 354-97 over 35 seasons. Horn, 61, a defensive mastermind, is next at 351-96 in 35 seasons. Each has eight Blue Maps, an incredible testament to two men who have built their records with average athletes, not legions of Division I prospects.

Curtis is 74-16 in the playoffs at UMS-Wright; Horn is 75-23 at Clay County and Central Clay. Curtis is 23-1 in the first round with the Bulldogs; Horn 20-4 with the Vols and Panthers.

Both say the record, whoever’s hands it settles into, doesn’t matter.

“I don’t know how many wins he has and I don’t want to know,” Horn said. “It’s not important. I’m just trying to win the next game. The wins — I couldn’t care less. People try to make this out as me versus him but I’m not playing. Maybe he will. I’d stand a better chance if I was playing against him. I think I could outrun him, even though he looks a lot younger than I do.”

Curtis, while savoring the matchup, is glad it doesn’t happen every year.

“Thank goodness I didn’t play him that much because I wouldn’t have as many wins,” Curtis said. “We’ve gotten to be friends through the years. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s done things right. Regardless of what happens, I can say I was the first to 350 wins. To be first is very humbling.”

If UMS-Wright wins, Horn will be stopped, at least for this year, at 351 victories, at least four behind Curtis. If Fyffe wins the 2A state championship, Paul Benefield would tie Horn at 351.

If Central Clay beats the Bulldogs and goes on to win the state championship, Horn will be the new record holder at 356, two ahead of Curtis.

Old-school ways work

In the era of the spread offense, Curtis and Horn rely on fundamentals, discipline, special teams, scarce mistakes, the running game and defensive leverage to make opponents bend to their will.

“We were brought up in a time when you ran the ball and played good defense and you were fundamentally sound,” Horn said. “Football has changed over time — the spread has changed things and you have to defend more of the field now — but blocking and tackling never change. You still have to do those things to win games.”

Both teams rely on their running games — “He couldn’t care less if he throws it,” Curtis said of Horn — but both have vulnerabilities in the backfield to be exploited.

“You’ve got to get him behind the chains and make him do things he doesn’t want to do,” Curtis said.

The same could be said of the Vols’ approach to UMS-Wright’s running game, which has gone through four running backs and is averaging just 145 yards on the ground, mostly from first-year quarterback Joe Lott.

Central Clay has its own problems after losing star running back Ladamion Boyd to a broken fibula last week after rushing for 1,621 yards and 22 touchdowns.

‘We still enjoy it’

But each also has strengths — the Vols have perhaps the best defensive coach in state history and the Bulldogs have a master of close games.

UMS-Wright has scored just 178 points this season, the lowest ever under Curtis, and doesn’t figure to suddenly become a juggernaut against Horn. In one impervious stretch at Clay County, Horn’s defenses had 30 shutouts in the three state championship seasons of 1994, 1995 and 1996 and set state records by winning 55 straight games, allowing just 22 points in 1994 and shutting out 11 teams in 1996.

“Watching his guys on film, it makes me shake my head and smile because you see they have been taught right,” said Curtis, who thrives on such challenges.

The Vols’ first 10-0 regular season in school history could be rendered nearly meaningless by Curtis, who has a way of winning close games and delivering upsets in the few instances he hasn’t had the better team.

He is 57-40 in one-score games over his career and also 12-5 against undefeated teams in the playoffs. The Bulldogs have advanced past the first round in four of the previous five years they have entered the postseason unranked.

“We’re going to play with a lot of fire,” Curtis said, and Horn isn’t claiming victory on paper.

“We’ve got to be prepared for just about anything,” Horn said. “I’m sure they will throw some things at us we haven’t seen. They’re good enough to beat us. In the playoffs, everybody is 0-0 and especially in the first couple of rounds, you’re gonna play folks you don’t usually play. One bad night and it’s over.”

But not yet forever, although Horn said he’s not going to coach as long as Curtis.

“You’ve got to admire an old coach who has stayed in it that long,” Horn said. “Obviously, his track record speaks for itself. I know I’m not going to do it until I am 73. The reason we’re still coaching is because we still enjoy it. Once you retire, you can look back and enjoy the memories. When you’re coaching, you’re just trying to win the next game.”

Curtis, likewise, gives every indication he will continue his life’s work.

“I love coaching,” Curtis said. “These kids I’ve got now have given me everything they’ve got. I haven’t seen them get down one time when things weren’t going well. These kids are still fun to coach — no discipline problems, no attitude problems. It makes you want to come back as long as I’m still making a difference and they’re still responding.”