MIDWAY, Ky. - Having traveled across the country in her time as a softball player and assistant coach, Frankfort, Kentucky native Bailey Curry is happy to start her next chapter in her own backyard.
Curry was recently hired as the new softball head coach at Midway University. After five years playing and three more coaching away from home, she is excited to begin her head coaching career in front of her loved ones.
"Family's always been big to me and being gone the last eight years...it's nice to move back home," she said.
The Eagle team she inherits will get to learn from a coach who had record-setting success throughout her playing career.
Curry is one of the most decorated high school players in Kentucky history. By the time she graduated from Anderson County High School, she had hit a state-record 75 home runs.
She had similar success at three Division-I college stops. She was named the Mid-American Conference Freshman of the Year at Toledo in 2018. Following a coaching change, she transferred to Louisiana-Lafayette, where she helped the Ragin' Cajuns win a Sun Belt title in 2021, betting .329 and homering in the conference championship game.
With a COVID year of eligibility remaining, she transferred to Western Kentucky in 2022, where she had a program-record 18 multi-RBI games.
She stayed at the Division-I level to start her coaching career at Bellarmine, where she was a graduate assistant during the 2023 season. She then landed her first assistant job and Division-II Cedarville (Ohio) in 2024, overseeing the team's hitters, infielders and outfielders.
And though this will be her first time in a head coaching roll, Curry doesn't believe she's starting from scratch, having had the opportunity to evaluate the Eagles from afar.
"I've watched the program over the last couple of years," she said. "I've had some friends that came through this program. There's good foundations. There's a lot of growth that can happen here."
Though she suspects the growth she's shooting for will take a few years to materialize, Curry is happy to set lofty goals for the future.
"(I want to) be that top contender in conference every year and make runs in the postseason," she said. "Five, ten years down the line, it would be nice to be in the World Series. It's a lot, but we'll figure it out."
