Deena Currie cares about sports of all kinds but she says soccer of them all, is her favorite as it holds a special place in her heart. She cares so much that… she gave up opportunities in some places to keep that love alive. Currie started soccer at age 7 in the youth leagues and continued to play throughout high school and college.

Currie says that people tend to really associate her with soccer. Emma Wood, an English teacher at CHS say,  “Soccer is like art to Ms. Currie. She says it’s what turned her into the person she is today.”

Currie describes soccer as “ …more than just a sport, there’s a beauty to it, a kind of poetry really.” Currie says soccer gave her a sense of belonging, a sense of confidence. Currie says that soccer brought out her best characteristics, highlighting them as she progressed through the sport; the confidence was already there she just needed something to show her that.  

Later in life, Currie played for the Cumberland college team but because she didn’t have scholarships like most of the other players, they benched her. She says, “A coach would rather put the kids they have money on in the game than the kid they spend nothing on.”

Currie says she had a school game with a cross town rivalry team, one of the best teams in the area . Currie had played on that rivalry team before, and they knew who she was. Currie got her chance to play when one of her teammates was injured and could not,play any longer for that game. Currie played the hardest she had ever played before, shutting down one of the rivalry team’s best players for the whole course of the game.

The teams tied but Currie and her home team took it as a victory on their part because they had played and hard game and teid with one of the best people in the area.

The teams looked at currie with a whole new respect she says, that day was her “becoming” something she believes many people will experience at some point in their life.

Currie’s coach offered her a scholarship, but she turned it down. Currie said she did not want to turn what she loved into something she didn’t enjoy any longer; she wanted to keep it alive with herself. Sports just meant that much to her.