Editor’s note: In the Colorado Classics series, The Denver Post takes a weekly look at individuals who made their mark on the Colorado sports landscape and what they are doing now.
Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe hasn’t forgotten his 11 seasons as an assistant coach at the Air Force Academy. And he has a message for Fisher DeBerry, an important mentor as Grobe was building a résumé that has taken him to the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
In this case, it’s the former understudy lending advice to a grizzled, lead role player in the ranks of college football coaches.
“I hope he comes back and battles through the tough times,” Grobe said. “He taught me a great lesson to not dwell on defeats and to move on to the next challenge. I still have kind of a chip on my shoulder. If we lost a game, he immediately got the players focused on the next week.”
Grobe said DeBerry was a good teacher when Grobe coached Air Force linebackers from 1984-94.
“We won a lot of football games when I was at Air Force,” said Grobe, who is a candidate to win college football’s coach of the year award.
“When I look back on my coaching career, I look at my time at Air Force as one of my rewarding experiences. The opportunity to coach with and learn from Fisher DeBerry was important. The warmest spot I’ve been in terms of personal associations was at Air Force.”
DeBerry and the Falcons have fallen on hard times with three consecutive losing seasons. Since his 2006 team completed a 4-8 season Dec. 2 with a 38-14 loss at TCU, DeBerry hasn’t decided if he’ll return for a 24th season. His answer has been a terse “no comment.”
Air Force had nine winning seasons during Grobe’s time there. The best years were 1985, when the Falcons were 12-1, including a 24-16 victory over Texas in the Bluebonnet Bowl, and 1991, 10-3 with a 38-15 win over Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl.
Steve Russ and Chris Gizzi, two of Grobe’s pupils, played in the NFL; Russ with the Broncos and Gizzi with the Green Bay Packers. J.T. Tokish has returned as a member of the academy’s medical staff and Brian Hill returned as a member of the faculty.
“We rarely had a player who had everything,” Grobe said. “Sometimes our players weren’t quite as tall, a half-step slower or 10 pounds lighter, but their intangibles were off the charts. They had great instincts and they could win football games.”
Grobe set out to find his fame and fortune as a head coach in 1995. He knew he wouldn’t be starting at the top.
“More than anything, I just felt I had gone as far as I could go as an assistant coach,” Grobe said. “I needed a new challenge and the challenge was to see if I could become a successful head coach.”
His proving ground became Ohio University, a team that was 0-11 in 1994 and a program that had experienced several 10-game losing streaks in the seasons before.
“It wasn’t a real good situation, but it was the only way I could get a head coaching job,” Grobe said. “The motivation was to take a program that was down and make something out of it.”
To help matters, Grobe took some young assistant coaches from Air Force with him. The former Falcons were Troy Calhoun, presently with Houston in the NFL; Brian Knorr, presently on the Air Force staff; Tim DeRuyter, who has stayed in coaching, and Billy Mitchell, who has stayed with Grobe throughout. Steed Lobotzke, a former Air Force player, also is on Grobe’s Wake Forest staff.
Ohio’s football record reached .500 (33-33-1) in Grobe’s six years, including seasons of 8-3 and 7-4.
But Grobe, 54, has hit the jackpot at Wake Forest. His 2006 team went 11-2 and won the Atlantic Coast Conference title with a 9-6 victory over Georgia Tech and coach Chan Gailey, another former Air Force assistant coach. Wake Forest will play Louisville in the Orange Bowl.
DeBerry was complimentary of his former assistant.
“Jim Grobe’s success is not a surprise to me,” DeBerry said. “In my estimation, he’s a lock for the national coach of the year award. Having a former assistant coach from your staff to go on and have the success Jim has had is a great joy for a coach.”
Grobe said he learned the importance of recruiting players with character while he was at Air Force.
“I’m happy at Wake Forest right now,” Grobe said. “I still have some things to do here. We’ve had some good years, but I’d like to see us build on what we’ve done and maintain it over the years.”
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
