AIR FORCE ACADEMY — With the Rampart Range as the backdrop, and with the Air Force practice fields emptying of cadet football, lacrosse, soccer and even ultimate Frisbee players in the late afternoon, Troy Calhoun lifted his young daughter, Amelia, and placed her on his shoulders.
As the Falcons’ Saturday home game against No. 20 Utah approached, the second-year Air Force coach smiled as he thought back to the circumstances that led to him arriving at the academy as a teenager in the mid-1980s.
They are the circumstances that give him credibility when he tells his players to hang in there as they cope with the rigors of the academy.
Calhoun, 41, has been there.
The former Falcons quarterback, who finished his career as the backup to the dynamic Dee Dowis and as a virtual assistant coach in uniform, not only has walked in the cadets’ shoes, he has spit-polished them.
Calhoun was from the hardworking lumber town of Roseburg, Ore. His dad, Terry, was a teacher; his mother, Joyce, was an emergency room nurse. As he finished up at Roseburg High, he surveyed his options, even thinking of whether he would join many of his contemporaries in going to work at one of the mills.
“My mom pretty much said, ‘There isn’t a choice to be made here. You’re going to the Air Force Academy,’ ” Calhoun said. “There were many days I was here when I was mad as I could be at my mother. It ended up being a super place for me. But about the first 18 months, you’re thinking, ‘Mean old Mom.’
“Yet, what are you going to say when your mom walks into the house, sometimes she had blood all over. It’s not like you’re going to complain about being sore or saying this is a little bit too stressful. I guess she did know best. . . . She tells me all the time she still has those letters from me, telling her how mean she was. I still needle her a little bit.”
Calhoun’s sister, Callie, was two years behind him at the academy and won six individual NCAA titles in cross country and track and field. So the choices to accept the congressional appointments worked out well for both of Joyce’s children, and Calhoun was the natural selection as Fisher DeBerry’s successor. By 2006, Calhoun had a deep resume as an assistant coach on the collegiate and NFL level, including with the Broncos and Houston Texans.
He returned determined to diversify the Falcons’ offense from its reliance on the option game. Perhaps the most amazing thing about his success in his first two seasons is the Falcons are winning during a major offensive transition. Calhoun again discovered that he had little choice; he had to back off a bit. The Falcons often run out of the shotgun and are getting considerable yardage from tailbacks, but the passing game isn’t yet much of an option. In beating Houston last week to go 3-0 for the season, and increasing Calhoun’s two-season record as head coach to 12-4, the Falcons didn’t complete a single pass.
He has changed the Falcons’ recruiting emphasis — an emphasis that in any case is subject to the congressional appointment parameters and high standards — in the hope of ratcheting up the speed quotient on the roster.
“You get a little more swift, you get a little more separation on the outside to get the throws in there,” Calhoun said. “I’m not saying it’s easy. I would almost bet that any time a service academy in the last 30 years had a winning team, it probably wasn’t in the top 100 in passing. I think you have to keep pushing.”
It also involves evolution, since the program’s early days of success came when Ben Martin’s teams were among the most imaginative and successful passing programs in the country, including when Ernie Jennings was the best wide receiver in the country in the Woodstock era.
“Back in that day,” Calhoun said, “you probably had to be a little unique in your approach, too. Then, throwing the ball was a little bit unique. The thing you can’t be is cut out of the same mold on offense and defense as everyone else. You have to be a little bit different. Maybe as you get a little more size and quickness, you can have a different approach, but you have to be resourceful and creative, and still teach clearly so your guys can execute.”
And you have to keep in mind that some of your players still are learning to love the place.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
