Few jobs in college football are more challenging than being the head coach at a service academy.
Air Force coach Troy Calhoun knew what he was getting into when he took the job – he graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1989.
About 12 years after concluding his service as an active duty officer (and assistant football coach), Calhoun returned to Colorado Springs, Colorado. The second Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl will mark the end of Calhoun’s 10th season as the head man at his alma mater. No one consistently has done more with less.
The Arizona Bowl marks the Falcons’ ninth bowl appearance in Calhoun’s 10 seasons. He is the only coach in the history of the service academies to lead to his team to at least seven wins and a bowl berth in each of his first five seasons. Air Force had endured three straight losing seasons prior to Calhoun’s return.
In between his Air Force stints, Calhoun coached at Ohio, Wake Forest and in the NFL with the Denver Broncos and Houston Texans. The 50-year-old native of Roseburg, Oregon, talked to the Star:
You know how hard it is to recruit and win at the service academies. So why come back?
A: “If you look purely from a career perspective, it may not have been a wise move. Just being perfectly candid. But I still think it’s kind of cool that somewhere, in the heart and soul of a young man or a young woman, they want to serve and they want to be coached. Bottom line. They want to be developed and coached. There’s still a way.”
Why did you get into coaching?
A: “The interaction you have with young people. To be able to provide an enhancement to the quality of education that they enjoy. Being a key part of their educational experience. Being able to utilize athletics, competitive athletics, especially when it comes to the grit and the sacrifice, the mental toughness, the discipline. To be able to handle adversity – yet at the same time to have the kind of humility to be able to handle achievement and success.
“So many of those lessons, they can carry with them for the next 50 or 60 years of life. They can be every bit as vital to their future achievements and success as what they learn in a classroom.”
You have coached in the NFL. You have been an assistant coach in all three phases. How has that helped you as a head coach?
A: “I don’t know if there’s anybody that’s more involved in all aspects of their program than I am. I like really, really being involved, whether it’s recruiting, what we’re doing defensively, offensively, special teams. The academic part of it. We do not have an academic-services person; I do that. In addition, being involved in all of our meetings and some of the things we’re doing game plan-wise.
“I love the minutiae. The people we get to work alongside. We have an exceptional staff. To me, coaching is, you love the field, you love the film, you love seeing players progress and you love seeing a game plan come to fruition.”
All of the service academies are run-oriented programs. But you use a lot of different formations. What’s the genesis of that system?
A: “When we were at Wake Forest, we led the ACC in total offense. We were primarily a spread/no-huddle team there. Then obviously in the NFL, I was very fortunate at both places, with Mike Shanahan and Gary Kubiak, to work with coaches who believed immensely in balance, that you have to be able to (run and) throw the ball well and generate big plays, especially through play-action passes. That’s what we’ve tried to do here.
“We are really, really small up front. We may not have great open-field movement at certain skill positions. But … if you look at any year since we’ve been here, we have to be one of the 20 best or 15 best teams in the country when it comes to passing efficiency. We just have to be that good in that regard in addition to being able to run the ball well.”
What is the best thing a young person gets out of attending the Air Force Academy?
A: “It won’t be anything short-term. The personal growth, the quality of an education that not only includes great academics but the character and the leadership part of it is immense. By no means is that easy to see when you’re 17 or 18 years old. But I think as you get later in life, when you’re 25 or 30, there’s going to be enormous gratitude for having an academy experience.”
