Impact of a Scholarship: Curt Scovel

The lessons of leadership that guide Curt Scovel, an executive for a leading pharmaceutical sales company, were learned from his time as a scholarship wrestler and team captain at the University of Maryland in the mid-1980s. 

Scovel, 57, serves as the Vice President of United States Sales for NxStage Medical in Cary, North Carolina, and has spent the last 20 years with the company ascending to his current role in 2012. To this day, the 1987 Maryland All-American traces his success and management traits to his days at College Park, under legendary coach John McHugh. 

“Being a captain of your team, that was a huge deal, even more important than the accolades on the team,” said Scovel. “If you are chosen a captain, by your coaches or your teammates, that means so much. If I see you were a captain, that is really important to me.”

Over the years Scovel has hired dozens of employees and there are certain things that stand out to him when a candidate is under consideration. 

“In my role, I do a lot of interviews (hiring people) and I go to the bottom of the resume first. I want to know what they did in college. Were you an athlete? Were you on scholarship? Were you working and paying your own way? That means a lot,” said Scovel.

Scovel was a local product who didn’t have to travel far when he chose to attend the University of Maryland and grew to fall in love with the sport in which he became a decorated star. In fact, he didn’t compete in wrestling until high school. 

“I grew up in Laurel, right down the road, I’m a P.G. County guy, 20 minutes from College Park,” said Scovel. “I was the classic baseball, basketball. football player in high school. In my ninth-grade year, the wrestling coach came up to me and said ‘I think your basketball days are over.’ 

“One of my best friends was a wrestler and it took all of one practice and I was hooked. Wrestling was such an aggressive mono-y-mono competition. All of sudden, I was a wrestler”

And a pretty good wrestler he became.  Scovel went on to earn back-to-back Maryland State championships at Laurel High School in 1981 and 1982 at 167 pounds and earned the prestigious Joseph M. Murphy Memorial Award as the most valuable wrestler in the county as a senior.

Those performances opened eyes, especially those of McHugh, who couldn’t let this local prodigy leave his back yard. 

“Maryland came and offered me a full ride, I was like ‘OK, I have a full ride, I’m going,’ ” said Scovel. “When I look back, I think being on scholarship is everything, going to Maryland and being a student-athlete was everything.

“The real beauty of being on a scholarship -- I was going to have to pay my own way -- so when it came to needing books or other things, I was covered. There is a lot of pride in being a scholarship student-athlete.”

Scovel embraced every aspect of being at Maryland, being so close, where his parents could watch him compete in every match and even enjoyed the campus’ sometimes not-so-cozy accommodations. 

“Walking into see the concrete walls with the metal bed in my dorm, and I said, ‘this is the greatest place ever. I have my own place,’ ” he recalled. “Those four years in college are like 20 years, they seem like they last forever, a lot of good memories and good stories. I loved my time at Maryland.”

Scovel made the starting lineup as a freshman but tore up his knee and had to redshirt his first year, but he says that was the best thing that ever happened to him, allowing him to grow and mature. 

After rehab, he was back in the lineup the following season and was a force at 167 pounds representing his home state. He was named a team captain and finished eighth in the National Championships in 1987 earning All-American honors. 

“Your job as a captain, you have to keep them being positive and make them believe they can get there,” said Scovel, who still references his time at Maryland decades later in his work. “Your teammates look to you for inspiration. In my career, that has been my job at the companies to be that guy in the locker room or now that guy in the office that they look to for motivation. It starts in high school and then college, you are that steadfast leader. You get the guys motivated.”

Beyond wrestling, Scovel has a lot to thank Maryland for, as he was introduced to his wife while in college. 

“I met my wife, who was a gymnast, over winter break,” he recalled of his first interactions with the-then Kathryn Hudson. “We all lived there in the dorms and all the athletes spent a lot of time together. Her story is better than mine.”

Kathryn was a star in gymnastics and in the classroom. She earned the Charles H. Beebe Award as the female student-athlete with the highest GPA in 1987. She graduated first in her class, Summa Cum Laude in the College of Journalism. Today she serves as the Senior Vice President of National Field Sales for global educational leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

The family legacy lives on today as their daughter Shannon, who was a scholarship swimmer and team captain at American University, is a Journalism Ph.D. student at the Phillip Merrill College at Maryland. She also serves as a Teaching Assistant on campus. 

Scovel’s son, Riley, graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2020 where he competed for the club hockey and bass fishing teams. 

With deep family ties and passion for his alma mater, Scovel follows Maryland and the wrestling program closely.

“I support Maryland and I watch wrestling with my daughter,” he said. “I have reconnected with a lot of the guys I wrestled with at Maryland. When Maryland wrestled against Penn State on TV (in late February) we had a great text exchange going back and forth. We have a pretty good crew that has gotten closer over the last few years. Alex Clemsen is doing a good job of getting the former wrestlers to give back, he’s been aggressive. I would love to see more of our teammates get involved.

“If you can give it back, you need to give back. We received scholarships back when we didn’t have anything. If it did you right, it allowed you to be successful. I see what sports and being on scholarship did for me, my wife, my daughter, my son, and I have been very fortunate. I will make sure mine is repaid.”