Stephen Curry Finds Out His Childhood Shooting Coach Died Alone—Then Pays for the Funeral Himself

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Stephen Curry Finds Out His Childhood Shooting Coach Died Alone—Then Pays for the Funeral Himself

Stephen Curry stood in front of the locker room mirror, sweat still clinging to his skin, adrenaline finally starting to fade. The Warriors had just pulled off a tough road win—32 points, five threes, another highlight to feed the endless postgame buzz. But Steph wasn’t smiling. He hadn’t smiled much lately, not really. Winning felt like maintenance now, not magic. He pulled his hoodie over his head and stepped into the hallway, ready to face another round of interviews and sponsor dinners.

A team assistant caught up with him, holding out a sealed envelope. “This came for you, Steph. No return address.”

Steph nodded, barely looking at it, and slipped it into his bag. He made it through the rest of the night—smiling for cameras, answering the same questions, shaking hands with fans. But when he finally made it back to his hotel room, the city quiet outside, he remembered the envelope. He opened it, expecting a fan letter or maybe a note from a family friend. Instead, a grainy newspaper clipping and a funeral home card fell into his lap.

Harold “Hal” Blevens, 72. No known family. No service scheduled. Cremation pending.

Steph stared at the words, his chest tightening. Hal Blevens. He hadn’t heard that name in years—not since his high school days back in Charlotte. Hal wasn’t a coach on any payroll, never wore a whistle or a team polo. He was just there, every morning at the rec center, ball in hand, stopwatch in his pocket, always wearing those baggy tracksuits and carrying a cassette player on his hip. Kids laughed at him sometimes, but Hal never cared. He cared about two things: shooting form and belief.

Steph remembered the first time Hal corrected his elbow placement, the way he made him shoot a hundred free throws in silence just to hear the rhythm. Hal never missed a morning, even when he limped more than he walked. Now, the man who shaped Steph’s foundation had passed quietly, alone, with no family and no funeral.

Steph sat down, the paper trembling slightly in his fingers. His phone buzzed—a reminder for a photo shoot the next morning. He silenced it, then picked it up again and called his manager.

“Cancel tomorrow. And the day after,” he said.

“You’ve got two sponsor appearances. What’s going on?”

“I need to fly home to Charlotte.”

“Why?”

Steph hesitated. “Someone who taught me everything just died,” he said quietly. “And I didn’t even know until now.”

There was no media trail, no announcement. Steph packed a duffel, wore a low-profile cap, and boarded a red-eye out of San Francisco. By the time he landed in North Carolina, gray clouds hovered over the skyline. He didn’t call anyone. This wasn’t for the headlines.

The funeral home was a brick building wedged between a shut-down pawn shop and a faded diner. There were no limos outside, no guests, just an old white sign: Service for Harold Blevens, 11:00 a.m. Steph stepped inside. One small bouquet of flowers sat beside a photo of Hal, much younger, holding a clipboard and squinting at the camera. A clerk stood behind the podium, clearing his throat.

Steph looked around. No pews were filled. No music played. He was the only one there.

He sat down in the front row, folding his hands, eyes locked on Hal’s picture. The clerk began reading a standard eulogy—distant, impersonal, a script. Harold Blevens was born in 1951, worked various jobs, a man of quiet routine. Never married, no children or next of kin.

The words stung. It sounded like a resume stripped of life, as if Hal had never mattered beyond the lines of a spreadsheet.

Steph raised his hand gently. “May I say something?”

The clerk nodded and stepped aside.

Steph walked to the front of the room. He looked at the empty seats, the dusty light filtering through the windows, and back at Hal’s photo. He exhaled.

“I don’t think Hal cared about being known,” he began. “But he should have been.”

The words didn’t come like they did in interviews. They came slowly, from somewhere deeper.

“When I was a kid, I wasn’t the biggest. I wasn’t the fastest. A lot of coaches said I wouldn’t make it past high school ball. But Hal didn’t care about any of that. He only cared about how the ball left my fingertips. He cared about form, rhythm, belief.”

He glanced back at the photo, lips pressed tight. “Hal used to say, ‘The arc of your shot is like your life. It might dip low, it might get ugly, but if you put in the work, trust the release, it’ll rise again.’”

Steph swallowed the lump in his throat. “He gave me everything he had—his time, his wisdom, his belief. He did it without pay, without cameras. He never asked for anything. I wouldn’t be standing here today if not for him.”

The room remained silent, but it didn’t feel empty anymore. Steph reached into his bag and pulled out an old cassette tape. He held it up. “I found this in his house once. He labeled it ‘Steph 2001.’ It’s just me missing shots over and over, but you can hear his voice in the background. Every time.”

He clicked the small portable player. The room filled with Hal’s scratchy voice: “Again. You’re not broken, you’re building.”

Steph let the tape run for a moment, then turned it off. “He believed in me before the world did,” he said softly. “And I never got to thank him.”

He placed the tape beside the photo, gave one final look at the picture, and stepped back to his seat.

There was no applause, no fanfare—just a moment, quiet, powerful, and real. In that moment, it wasn’t MVP Stephen Curry sitting in a funeral home. It was a kid saying goodbye to the man who helped him believe in the arc.

Steph didn’t leave right away. He stayed behind after the clerk gave a quiet nod and wheeled the photo and flowers away. The lights were dimming, but Steph sat there, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. His mind ran through memories: sweat-drenched mornings in the old rec gym, Hal’s sharp corrections, the sound of a net snapping when he finally nailed the release, Hal’s stubborn old truck with the door that jammed and the heater that never worked.

Hal had no children, no family, no awards hanging in his house. Yet he gave everything to Steph without asking for anything in return.

Steph finally stood up, the room feeling colder now. He walked outside into the wind, pulled his hood up, and stood on the empty sidewalk. No fans, no reporters, just the gray sky, the sound of a distant car, and the thought that haunted him most: no one else had come.

Later that night, he sat in a rental car outside a run-down house in a forgotten part of town. The address came from the funeral home’s clerk, who warned him it wasn’t in great shape. Condemned last month, the man had said. No next of kin to claim it.

Steph got out, crunched over broken leaves, and peered through the dusty window. It looked exactly like how Hal lived—simple, unbothered by time. A lawn chair instead of a couch, a cracked mirror in the hall. Then, through the shadows, something caught his eye: a stack of boxes, each one labeled with duct tape and a Sharpie. One word on every label: Practice.

He broke the lock with help from a local locksmith. Inside, the air was musty, thick with dust and the smell of old books and rusted pipes. He moved into the back room where the boxes were. He crouched down, opened the top one, and froze. Tapes. Dozens of them—VHS, MiniDV, even old cassette recordings, each marked with a name and year. Some said “Marcus 1998,” “Jalen 2000,” “Steph 2001, 2002, 2003.”

He pulled one out and held it like it was gold. Hal hadn’t just trained him. He had recorded him, studied him, kept everything. He found an old portable VHS player nearby, took a risk, and plugged it in. It sparked a little but came to life. He slid in the first tape labeled “Steph 2001—Form Drills.” Static at first, then the image came through—blurry, but clear enough. There he was, a younger version of himself, maybe 13 or 14, lanky and awkward, missing shots left and right. The rim was crooked, the ball bounced off in every direction, but Hal’s voice in the background never wavered.

“Square your feet. Elbow tighter. Let the wrist fall like water. Again.”

Steph sat there watching, jaw clenched. He hadn’t cried earlier, not during the eulogy, not even when he spoke. But now, sitting in a forgotten house, watching a forgotten man pour everything into his younger self, it hit him. Hal had given him something more valuable than any trophy: belief, when no one else did.

He stayed in the house for over an hour, digging through the rest of the tapes—old notebooks filled with shooting drills, diagrams, even newspaper clippings about Steph’s college career, highlighted and underlined. Hal had followed every step Steph took. The tapes, he carefully packed into a box and drove them back to the hotel. He didn’t sleep that night. Instead, he watched them one by one—a time machine into his own past, narrated by a man who never wanted credit.

The next morning, Steph made two calls. First, to his foundation’s director. “We’re building something,” he said. “A gym, a rec center. Somewhere Hal’s name lives on.” The second call was to his publicist. “No press. Don’t leak anything. This is personal.”

That afternoon, he met with a small construction team and city planners. He picked a plot of land not far from Hal’s old home—a neglected area where kids still played ball on worn-out sneakers and bent rims. He walked the lot himself, stood in the center, and closed his eyes. “Don’t make it flashy,” he imagined Hal saying. “Make it useful.”

A week later, the plans were drawn: The Harold Blevens Shooting Lab. Nothing fancy—just real hardwood, quality baskets, plenty of space, and open hours for anyone who wanted to learn. Steph made sure it was stocked with drills Hal created, posters with his old sayings, and on the front door, a small plaque: You’re not broken, you’re building.

The gym opened without a press conference, no ribbon cutting—just a few kids shooting on a Tuesday afternoon. But word spread fast. Coaches came, former players, even some guys Steph used to train with. One kid, maybe 10 years old, short and wiry, asked the coach one day, “Who’s Harold Blevens?” The coach smiled and pointed to the quote on the wall. “A man who taught Steph Curry how to shoot,” he said, “and never asked for a thank you.”

That night, Steph watched a video someone sent him from the gym. It showed that same kid hitting his first perfect free throw. The camera caught the moment he looked back at the plaque on the wall, smiled, and whispered the words, “You’re not broken, you’re building.”

Steph put his phone down, sat quietly, then whispered it back. “Thank you, Coach.”

The NBA season pressed on—games, travel, endorsements, press junkets. But Steph wasn’t moving through it the same way anymore. The routine felt heavier now, not in a bad way, just with more weight behind each motion. He was carrying something unseen—a voice from those tapes, still echoing in his head.

Late one night after a home win, Steph stayed in the arena. Everyone else had cleared out. He stood alone at the free throw line, just him and the ball. He bounced it once, twice, shot—swish. He caught the rebound, stepped back, and did it again—swish. Then again—off the rim. He let it roll and didn’t chase it. Instead, he sat down on the hardwood and leaned back against the base of the stanchion, eyes closed, sweat cooling on his neck.

That’s when he heard footsteps. He looked up. It was Draymond.

“Figured I’d find you here,” Draymond said, tossing him a towel.

Steph nodded, wiped his face.

“You all right?” Draymond asked, sitting beside him.

Steph hesitated, then answered. “Yeah. Just thinking about… what matters.”

Draymond didn’t answer right away. He just sat with him. Then said, “You’re doing more for him now than most people do for the living.”

Steph stared at the floor. “Doesn’t make it right.”

“No,” Draymond said. “But it makes it count.”

They sat in silence a while longer, two teammates, two men in different stages of life, both understanding the cost of legacy.

The next morning, his foundation director called. “You’ve got a letter,” she said. “Not email, not a DM—an actual letter. Handwritten.”

Steph raised an eyebrow. “From who?”

“No name on the envelope. Just says ‘Blevens Method’ on the front.”

He told her to send a scan. Ten minutes later, he opened the file on his laptop. The handwriting was shaky, unsure, but the message was clear.

Dear Mr. Curry,

I wanted to thank you for what you’re doing. My son Jaylen has always struggled in school. He’s small, quiet, gets picked on, but he loves basketball. Always has. I never had the money for private training. Then we found the Blevens videos. He watches them every night. He writes Coach Hal’s quotes in a notebook, says it’s like having a coach in the room. Two days ago, he made the school team for the first time. I’ve never seen him that proud. And I’ve never been more grateful. You gave my son a chance to feel seen, and you gave a good man his legacy back. Thank you.

A single mom in Atlanta

Steph read it twice, then once more. That afternoon, he filmed another training clip—just him in the gym again. At the end of the video, he looked straight into the lens and said, “This one’s for the quiet kids. The ones who keep showing up, who don’t need attention—just opportunity. Keep building.”

The clip went out with no announcement, no caption. That weekend, the team flew to Denver. The game was tight, Warriors down two, final seconds, ball in Steph’s hands. Everyone expected the shot. He dribbled, step back, defender in his face. He rose—and then he passed. Kick to the corner. Wide open three. Swish. Warriors win.

Reporters asked later why he didn’t take the shot. He shrugged and said, “Sometimes belief means trusting the arc, even when it’s not yours.”

That night, Steph returned to the hotel and opened his laptop. There was a new message in the foundation inbox, this time from a former player. “Coach trained me, too. I never made it to the league, but I coach now, and I use his drills every day. Thanks for making people remember he changed more lives than he probably ever knew.”

Steph leaned back in his chair. Something clicked. That night, he called his team again. “I want to do something bigger,” he said.

“Bigger how?”

“A documentary. Not about me. About Hal. About his life, his impact. Let’s track down the kids he coached. Let’s tell his story the right way.”

“You want producers? Directors? Hollywood?”

“No,” Steph said. “I want truth. No polish. Just the story.”

The work began—quiet, methodical, just like Hal would have done it. They called it The Arc That Built Us.

But that came later. For now, Steph watched the game replay—not to see the win, but to see the moment he passed the ball. The trust in that moment was the product of everything Hal ever taught him. You’re not broken, you’re building.

And Steph knew he still was.