Kids call him Curt. He invites them to.
Curt Hume strolls around the football field at Ellet Community Learning Center on a recent Friday night, his fifth day of double-digit work hours, mostly on the move. Hume smiles at, hugs and gives dap to dozens of parents, students and other visitors to the football facility, the only one in Akron Public Schools with lights.
“You remember me?” asks a former Ellet student attending the football game. Of course he does. Later, he stops by Ellet’s lively student section to chat.
Everybody knows Curt.
Hume, a longtime security guard at the CLC, ensures its safety from outsiders, as well as from dangers within, while handling the increasing rigors of his job by creating connections with teenagers.
He wonders if it’s because of his pre-teen behavior, wonders if they can sense his past.
“Our safety team has a different relationship with kids than teachers and principals and SROs,” Hume, the son of a former APS teacher and an athletic director, said on Oct. 11.
Troubled kids, for whatever reason, Hume said, think those adults are out to get them in trouble. Out to get them. “For whatever reason, they do trust in us, that we’re trying to help them out of trouble instead of getting them in trouble.”
He’s come full circle.
It took a village to save Hume. Now he helps others
Hume’s father was a teacher at Perkins Middle School before he died.
About a year later, he was 11 years old and attending his father’s school — without him. Angry. And his mother was transforming from a stay-at-home mom to a single parent working all the time.
Seventh grade, Hume said, was nonstop trouble.
Lucky for him, he was surrounded by his dad’s former peers. Faculty and staff looked after him during this period, eventually steering him in the right direction.
Athletic director: ‘Everybody knows Curt’
So when Hume, a 1987 Buchtel graduate, approaches an Ellet student in the midst of a troubling situation, the student is more likely to listen.
“Kids are going to act up; that’s a part of kids going to sporting events, acting up in school a little bit,” said Justin Dimengo, the athletic director at Ellet CLC.
“But because Curt has that relationship with them, that repertoire … they’re more likely to stop.”
Hume is a fixture at events across Akron Public Schools.
During the days leading up to Ellet’s Oct. 11 football game, Hume remained on the clock to work security at Akron Public Schools events on and off campus. Days start to run together when you’ve worked a junior varsity football game, a soccer doubleheader, a cross country championship, a volleyball title match and two days of varsity football in addition to school days.
The following day, he returned to Ellet CLC to work another varsity football game.
No wonder there’s a joke in Ellet circles: If an event took place in APS and Curt wasn’t there, did it really happen?
