Celebrations reveal Falcons' transformation

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Mar 2, 2004 | by DAVID RAMSEY Gazette Sports columnist

The band was playing. The crowd was chanting his name.

Joe Scott stood a few feet away from a rim slowly being stripped of its net. He watched A.J. Kuhle climb a ladder and listened to the roaring joy in Clune Arena.

"Unbelievable," Scott said softly. "Unbelievable."

A few seconds later, Scott climbed the ladder and completed a stunning, historic moment.

He completed the first-ever celebratory removal of a net at Clune, built in 1968 as home of one of college basketball's worst teams.

The man who stood atop the ladder, smile on his face, scissors in his hand, had transformed a program.

Used to be, you could count on Air Force fielding a lousy basketball team. It was one of life's few certainties.

No longer. Scott and his Falcons rule the Mountain West Conference. Air Force's 61-49 victory over San Diego State Monday night clinched an outright title.

The Falcons seized the title in their trademark style. Their defense soared as a smothering force, turning the Aztecs into a sputtering mess.

Nearly 12 minutes into the game, San Diego State had seven turnovers and six points.

Even after the final buzzer, the rise to the title remained difficult to believe. The Falcons had been so bad for so long the reality of a championship still seemed unreal.

Air Force bumbled to 113 losses and only 24 wins in conference play from 1994-2003.

The Falcons finished 9-33 in the Mountain West in the first three seasons of the Scott era.

Kuhle, a senior, remembers looking around Clune and wondering if fans realized a game was being played.

No one had thought about a ladder, which makes sense. A ladder had never been needed for a Clune celebration.

After a few moments of scrambling, one was found in a closet and the procession to the rim began.

Scott, wearing a Mountain West championship hat, remembered the bad old days. He took the Air Force job in 2000 with only a vague sense of the Falcons' gruesome basketball history.

He believed in his system, the one taught to him at Princeton by Pete Carril. He believed in his own history more than he feared Air Force's past.

He arrived in Colorado Springs and went to work. He worked 90 straight days, convinced if he worked with enough diligence, he could change this team that lost all the time to a team that won most of the time.

Then, on Dec. 5, 2000, he watched from the bench at Clune as Air Force lost to Lehigh. He watched, and he couldn't believe what he saw.

For the first time, he was shaken. It was his first season. What had he gotten himself into?

The next morning, Scott sat in his office, alone with his doubts and his agony.

"The lowest point," Scott said. "The lowest point."

There was a knock on his door.

It was football coach Fisher DeBerry.

"Somehow, he knew," Scott said.

DeBerry told Scott he would produce a winner. All Scott needed, DeBerry said over and over, was time.

DeBerry was right. Slowly, the Falcons changed. Scott kept pushing, kept shouting, kept believing.

Monday night, Scott walked up three steps of the ladder that had been discovered in a closet.

The crowd was chanting his name. The band was playing.

A team had been transformed.

Columnist David Ramsey can be reached at 476-4895 or dramsey@gazette.com