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At 11:53 p.m. on June 1, a crowd of 11,000-plus at Alex Box Field fell silent. A few moments earlier, the LSU fans were frantically trying to help the home team rescue victory from a defeat they never expected to witness. When LSU designated hitter Ethan Frey’s ground ball to Arkansas Little Rock shortstop Alex Seguine ended the game, the unexpected had become reality. The LSU Tigers had fallen to the UA Little Rock Trojans 10-4.
The ESPN cameraman finally located about 100 fans dressed in maroon and silver waving flags and exchanging high-fives. As the thousands of silent LSU fans exited around them, the dozens of Little Rock followers celebrated one of the most significant baseball wins in school history.
A double in the third inning, by Regional Tournament MVP Angel Cano, had given the Trojans a 5-3 lead they never relinquished. Junior Malcolm Brown, whose longest pitching appearance during the season had been four innings, pitched the last five innings and allowed only one run.
The Trojans had survived the losers’ bracket by defeating Dallas Baptist earlier in the afternoon, only to earn the right to play an LSU squad ranked #3 in some college baseball polls. Despite fatigue and long odds, the Trojans had prevailed.
Sometime during the silent exit of LSU fans and the Trojans fans’ celebration, June 1 became June 2. The national baseball writers could not resist calling the Little Rock victory a “Cinderella Story.” A Cinderella story is an unexpected event based on fantasy. Arkansas folks familiar with Trojans’ baseball and Coach Chris Curry knew that Little Rock was not a Cinderella team, but a very good Division I program on the rise.
The late-night game in the NCAA Regional occurred deep in the evening, and most college baseball fans awoke on June 2, surprised by a huge upset in Baton Rouge. The victory over LSU sent college baseball fans searching for answers to the questions: Where did UA Little Rock baseball come from, and who is Chris Curry?
Forty-seven-year-old Chris Curry and baseball had been together for more than 40 years. Curry made the local sports pages as early as his sophomore year at Conway High School, where he was an All-State catcher and part-time pitcher on both his high school and American Legion teams. He was good enough to get big-league attention and mature enough to make life-changing decisions.
The San Francisco Giants selected the recent high school grad in the 26th round of the 1996 MLB Amateur Draft. He was the 762nd player drafted, and in a million-dollar business, he was offered a few thousand to sign. Curry wisely declined. At the time of his first draft, about 160 Arkansas-born men had made the major leagues. An education was a better choice.
Curry selected Meridian Community College in Mississippi rather than bus rides on the back roads of the Giants’ farm system. Choosing the junior college route would allow Curry to move up to a higher draft position or receive a major college offer later. All of those choices materialized.
After outstanding seasons at Meridian, the Detroit Tigers selected Curry in the 1997 and 1998 drafts. Once again, he declined in favor of a college education and signed with Mississippi State in the SEC.
He led all Southeast Conference catchers in fielding percentage in the 1999 season, moved up to the ninth round of the draft, and started a pro baseball career in the Chicago Cubs organization. Curry’s time in professional baseball would span eight seasons in the minor leagues and provide another kind of “higher education” in the lab of pro baseball.
Curry played 565 professional baseball games. He played for the Emeralds, Lugnuts, Navigators, and Railcats, reaching as high as the Cubs’ AAA club in the Pacific Coast League in 2002. His last season was in Gary, Indiana, where he batted .285 and made the All-Star team in the Northern League. He would turn 29 at the end of that season. It was time to use his education to continue in the game he loved.
After working as an assistant coach at Hendrix (2007) and Arkansas Tech (2008), Curry spent two years as an assistant to Dave Van Horn in the SEC (2009, 2010). He was named the head coach back at his first college baseball home in Meridian Community College in 2011, where two successful years earned him promotions to Northwestern Louisiana as pitching coach. Curry was named head coach of the UA Little Rock Trojans in 2015.
Athletics staff headshot of baseball coach Chris Curry. Photo by Benjamin Krain.
The late-season run in the 2025 NCAA Regionals should not be a surprise, but another amazing accomplishment by a team with an experienced coach who knew how to motivate a team of receptive young men.
By 2023, Curry had established Little Rock as a successful Division I program. The Trojans finished second in the Ohio Valley Conference. Their victories included an 11-4 win over the Razorbacks in Fayetteville.
In 2024, Curry earned his third Coach of the Year award, and the Trojans won the OVC regular-season title. The 2023 and 2024 seasons were the first back-to-back winning seasons in program history in Division I.
The current chapter in the Chris Curry story made national headlines. The amazing run of the 2025 Trojans after a disappointing regular season may have come as a surprise to those who were not familiar with Chris Curry, his resilience, and his ability to motivate young men.
After losing the opening game in the Baton Rouge Regional 7-0 to LSU, the Trojans came back to win three consecutive games over Rhode Island and Dallas Baptist, and that memorable 10-4 win over the LSU Tigers in hostile territory. Little Rock got off to a 5-1 start in the deciding game before LSU came back to take the Regional title 10-6.
Angel Cano was named the MVP of the Baton Rouge Regional. Cano was joined on the All-Regional Tournament team by Ty Rhoades and Zach Henry. The Trojans and their coach earned their school many new followers with their resilience and unrelenting resolve.
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