More recently the Snell family tree has seen Stephen Curry’s uncle Cleive Adams become the head football coach at Averett University, and cousins Brenden Motley, Daniella Motley and Donald Wayne Snell’s son Zach Snell each become athletic stars at Christiansburg High School. Daniella Motley went on to play basketball for Wofford College, while Brenden Motley is currently fighting for playing time at quarterback for the Hokies.
“I’d basically say sports are everything to our family,” Brenden Motley said.
Zach Snell was also on Tech’s football team, as an invited walk-on, but left the team this spring to focus on school following injures to both wrists. Cleive Adams’ son Cleive Adams Jr. has taken a more original path into athletics by becoming a professional bullfighter in rodeos throughout Virginia and North Carolina.
“We’re still growing them and they’re still playing,” Sidney Snell said of his younger relatives.
And then, of course, there’s Stephen Curry’s siblings, ex-Duke and current NBA Development League guard Seth Curry, and Sydel Curry, who just finished her sophomore season on Elon University’s volleyball team.
“It’s so hard to keep track of what everybody does and you end up leaving somebody out and their feelings are hurt and it goes on,” Candy Adams said.
“You can’t just let Stephen overshadow everybody else,” her sister Lulabelle Lewis chimed in.
Stephen Curry’s cousin, Joseph Snell, a program associate with the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies in Washington, D.C., has spent countless hours and miles during the past four years researching the family’s history. Wesley Snell is Stephen Curry’s great-great-great-grandfather and Joseph Snell’s great-great-grandfather.
Joseph Snell has tracked the family’s roots back to Patrick County personal property tax records from the 1850s, which list Wesley Snell’s father, John Snell, as well as his grandmother Eliza Snell, among free blacks living on personal property.
He said his great-great-grandfather was known for having large, strong hands and coated railroad ties in creosote, among other things, for the Norfolk and Western Railway. He was also one of three charter members of the Radford Church of God in Christ on Russell Avenue.
Among Wesley Snell’s 11 children were Archie Snell Sr., a World War I veteran and Stephen Curry’s great-great-grandfather, and Hattie Mae Snell Day, the mother of both Sidney Grant Snell and Doug Day Sr.