Former Grambling Star Dead

GRAMBLING, La. (AP) â€” Mary Currie, the leading career scorer in Grambling State women's basketball, will be buried Saturday in her hometown of Dubach. <br><br>Currie, 34, died Sunday after a bout

Monday, July 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

GRAMBLING, La. (AP) â€” Mary Currie, the leading career scorer in Grambling State women's basketball, will be buried Saturday in her hometown of Dubach.

Currie, 34, died Sunday after a bout with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Currie played at Grambling from 1983-87 and finished her career with 2,256 points and 905 rebounds. For her career she averaged 20.7 points and 8.3 rebounds while shooting 51.9 percent from the field and 74.8 percent from the free throw line.

``This is real tough,'' said former Grambling coach Pat Bibbs, who also coached Currie at Dubach High School. ``Mary was actually my first player. She's kind of like my daughter. That's how close we were. She started for me as an eighth-grader.''

Bibbs, now the coach at Hampton University, coached Currie for five years at Dubach, winning the Class B state championship in 1983, Currie's senior year. Bibbs was then hired as the coach at Grambling the next year and Currie followed.

``I remember Mary Currie as a complete player because she could do a lot of things,'' Bibbs said. ``She played inside much of the time but was deadly from 15 to 16 feet. I still remember the night she hit 18 of 19 shots at the Ole Miss tournament.''