Five Minutes with a Hardshell: Curtis Corley

This month's featured hardshell is Curtis Corley ('19), who was a two-time All-American and member of Maryland's 2017 National Championship team. Corley has gotten involved in medical device sales since graduation with one of the industry's leading companies, Stryker.

How did you get involved with Stryker? What does the company do and what is your role with them?
Corley: "Our alumni system is pretty expansive and very helpful to all of us in the lacrosse program. Coach Tillman is the forefront of that alumni system and I reached out to him one day and said, 'Hey, I want to get into medical sales, I am very interested in it'. Medical school and the surgery route didn't really work out for me, so I checked with Coach Tillman and he said he's got some pretty good connections in Stryker. He got me in contact with a neurosurgeon in D.C. Dr. Wayne Olan, who coached my teammate Louis Dubick in high school. I had some great conversations with him, and then he was able to put me in contact with another lacrosse player he used to coach named Jake McHenry who played at Hobart. So I picked his brain for a while and just fell in love with the division he is in which is IVS - Interventional Spine. There was a long interview process but luckily I got the job. I knew if I wanted to leave lacrosse, I wanted it to be for a medical sales job that was in the top of the top, where I think Stryker is. I think Stryker always has been at the top of the top of medical sales and is even taking over that space a little bit more. Stryker's goal is just to make health care better with doctors and the patients who we treat with our products so that's another reason why I got into medical sales. I get to see these patients that doctors treat with my products get better. I had originally wanted to get into orthopedic surgery because I wanted to help people. So while I am not the one with my hands on the patient, I can still see these people getting better with the products that I sell. So I am very happy that I landed at Stryker."

Is this something you thought you would ever want to do? What do you like about it?
Corley: "Oh, that's a question I could answer like a thousand different ways. The best thing I like working here is that literally everyone in this company, in Stryker, has that athlete mentality even if they weren't athletes. But it seems like 85% of the company was an ex-athlete at some point in their time. Even if they weren't an ex-athlete, they have that mentality, that drive to always, they always say, be the best. Which is funny because coming from Maryland we literally say that throughout the day, be the best, that's what we preach, that's how we break our huddles. But, that's how it is here. It's a dog-eat-dog world and if you're not performing, you're going to get exposed. That's the kind of drive that gets you up and gets you going throughout the day. If you're not performing every day, someone else is going to come behind you and that's what it was at Maryland. If you're not performing everyday, someone will come behind you and take the position. So, that competitive side of always waking up and trying to do the best that I can, is selling for Styker in the streets of New York. It is what really drives me every day for sure."

What did you learn from your time at Maryland that you feel like has led to your success with Stryker?
Corley: "It's the way that Coach Tillman has put together his team. The way he is like, 'Look, if you are going to be here you've got to do it to the fullest of your ability.' You only get a short window to make your mark at Maryland. We only had four years. That's kind of stuck with me where I'm like, 'Hey if you're going to do a job, do it to the best of your ability.' If you mess up you can look back at it and say, 'Hey that's okay, I'll learn from it and move on.' Tillman really embodies that, as long as you are striving to get better. It doesn't have to be perfect as long as you are striving to get better. I've had some failures already in this industry but I've turned around in the way that I've reacted to them has really helped me out a lot. It's a lot of how you react in this industry and what you do after you make a mistake. Are you going to put your head down in the middle of the play and sulk about it or are you going to strap your chin strap back on and get back out there and play? That's how it is in medical sales. That's just the way we have been taught at Maryland -- if you fail, you've got to try again to the best of your ability."

Are you still leaving the door open to play again in the PLL?
Corley: "The option is there, I'm on the hold-out list so I am eligible to play come next season. I think the Cannons coach really wanted me on the roster this year and to play for them this year. Stryker wanted me to focus on my development which is what I have been doing and I would say if there is an opportunity that Stryker allows me to do both, I would definitely try to pursue both. I'm definitely missing it, every single time the PLL was on this year I watched. I would say the itch is still there to play lacrosse. But I also wanted to focus on career development and go all in with Stryker."

Looking back what are some of your fondest memories as a Terp?
Corley: Everytime you ask this to an alumni that was on that 2017 National Championship year they are going to say that, but I'm going to give you a little curveball here. That the entire 2019 season we had our ups and downs. When that group started finally coming together, we could have taken that group pretty far and I think -- we might have won a championship that year. But just the ups and downs that group went through. We had Tom [O'Connell] picking up a pole on defense in the playoffs which was something that I'll always remember. Tom being a short stick defensive middie all of his career, picks up a pole saying 'Hey I'm going to be the guy that gets this done for us and helps us try to get that championship.'. That's something that will always stick with me. We needed Tom to step up in the moment and he stepped up and I think he did a fantastic job."

-Terps-

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