Off the beaten path

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), May 16, 2004 | by TODD JACOBSON THE GAZETTE

Chris Mooney is the first to admit his path to a Division I coaching gig was a bit abnormal.

That is, if you think doing the laundry at Division III Beaver College is a little unusual for an aspiring basketball coach.

Or, if you think grading "The Catcher in the Rye" papers at a Catholic high school in the suburbs of Philadelphia isn't exactly a road map to a job scribbling Xs and Os on the sideline.

Or, if you think scheduling weddings at Beaver College is a bit odd, especially for a guy who seems perfectly content in warmup pants and a T-shirt, a basketball never far away.

Mooney, who succeeded Joe Scott as Air Force's fifth men's basketball coach April 22, did all those things, and fit in a little time to coach along the way.

"The path that I took is so unusual for someone to become a 31- year-old head coach," Mooney said. "If some- one were to say, 'How do I become a 31-year-old head coach,' you wouldn't say, 'Go be a high school coach.' You wouldn't say, 'Go to Beaver College.' You wouldn't say, 'Be an assistant at Air Force.' It's crazy."

In between grading English papers at Lansdale (Pa.) Catholic High School, Mooney coached the Crusaders' boys' basketball team to three Philadelphia Catholic League titles from 1995-98.

Beaver College is one of the few Division III schools without a full-time basketball coach, so Mooney doubled as coach and coordinator of conference services in his two years at the Glenside, Pa., school, which has since changed its name to Arcadia University.

Between scheduling weddings and math club meetings -- and washing his players' uniforms and arranging bus trips -- he took over a team with six players, the tallest being 6-foot-1, and led them to their last winning record, a 16-10 mark during the 1999-2000 season.

"It's like comparing Single-A baseball to the New York Yankees as far as facilities and travel, and recruiting," said Bill Avington, the media relations manager at Arcadia University and one of Mooney's boyhood friends. "He was doing everything from laundry to recruiting to coaching and administration."

Then, Mooney came to Air Force as an assistant to Scott. Observers said Scott was digging his own grave at a school that hadn't had a winning season since 1978. A job at Air Force was certainly better than washing sweaty jerseys, but it was no ticket to coaching stardom, either.

But Mooney was a big part of Air Force's success this season -- a Mountain West Conference title and a school-record 22 wins -- and it was a big reason Mooney got the job.

"It certainly isn't the normal route," said Northwestern coach Bill Carmody, who was an assistant at Princeton when Mooney was a player from 1990-94. "It was unusual, but he just wanted to get going. That's what he always said he wanted to do. That's what he did."

So don't pity Mooney.

Those jobs, odd as they may have been, were a means to this Air Force end, a way for Mooney to pursue the dream that began when he was a teenager and continued through college: Coach basketball, in any form.

'PRACTICE AND PRACTICE AND PRACTICE'

Mooney grew up in northeast Philadelphia, in a blue-collar area near Philadelphia Park Racetrack and Franklin Mills Mall.

In the Irish Catholic neighborhood, coaches and priests were revered like doctors and lawyers. They were the only ones with titles. Everyone else was mister or missus.

The youngest of five children, including two athletic older brothers, sports took up most of his childhood. But basketball stood out.

Mooney spent hours at Fitzpatrick Park, a recreation center with an outdoor basketball court in the middle of the endless stream of brick rowhouses that populate northeast Philadelphia.

Perhaps the biggest boost to his young basketball career came when he was 11, when lights were installed at the park. They were put in to allow adults who attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at night a few sports breaks, Mooney said, but they also served to spark Mooney's career.

Mooney would stay at the park until the lights went off at 1:45 a.m., playing pick-up games with his friends. When there was no one to play with, he shot by himself, testing his 3-point range.

"It was good because I was putting in as much extra time as I could," Mooney said. "That's where I spent most of my weekends. It was so late. It was just practice and practice and practice."

One reason Mooney played so much was to improve. Another was to jumpshoot away the pain of his mother's death. Mooney's mother died of cancer when he was 13.

His father, John, who recently retired after 35 years as a Greyhound bus driver, supported him, sending him to catholic school, and then to Princeton, which does not offer athletic scholarships.

"I am sure I kind of played more and more basketball then as kind of an outlet," Mooney said. "I had something to do to throw my energy and my concentration into."

Mooney was a standout at Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia, and he parlayed his success into a four-year career at Princeton, where Scott was an assistant coach.