Fife starts drumbeat: There can be success at IPFW

[greasywheels121]

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/8861379

 

Fife starts drumbeat: There can be success at IPFW

By Gregg Doyel

CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

 

FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- "This is where we do battle," Dane Fife says. The youngest head coach in Division I is beaming as he looks around the home court of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, though at the moment, it doesn't look like  much.

 

The court is gone. The hardwood floor, the concrete below it, everything. Gone. This is what happens every 15 or 20 years at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, which also is home to the Fort Wayne Komets hockey team. Because of the wear and tear from the ice, the floor has to be ripped up so the plumbing underneath can be replaced. Soon the floor will be back -- the concrete, the ice, then hardwood on top -- but right now, the home court of the IPFW Mastodons is an empty shell.

 

Just like the program Fife inherited.

 

The Mastodons went 7-22 last season with center David Simon, the best player in program history. He's gone. The year before, IPFW was 3-25. In four years since joining Division I, IPFW is 26-89. Did we mention the Mastodons' conference? They don't have one. They're one of eight independents in Division I. Recruiting is difficult. Scheduling is impossible. IPFW will play just 11 home games this season.

 

"It was rough when we got here," Fife says. "We had to get to work."

 

The early days were long. IPFW athletics director Mark A. Pope couldn't believe how long. He'd prided himself on being the first person into the Gates Sports Center, which houses IPFW athletics, but Fife's staff humbled him. Within weeks Pope conceded that he'd no longer be the one to turn on the lights at 7:30 a.m., because Fife and Co. were already there. But Pope was damned if he was going to let Fife turn off the lights, too.

 

"One night I decided I was going to be the last one here -- I didn't care how long it took," Pope says. "Finally at about 10:30 (p.m.), I walked into their offices and said, 'You win.' They were in there looking at tape."

 

Pope is smiling as he tells the story, because he loves it. It reaffirms the gut feeling he had in March when he hired a 25-year-old with no full-time coaching experience. Since leading Indiana to the 2002 NCAA final, Fife had tried out for the Houston Rockets, played one season in the CBA and spent two years as a Hoosiers administrative assistant.

 

Fife won over Pope with his passion and his planning. The passion, Pope expected. A Purdue graduate, Pope remembered watching Fife lead the Hoosiers more with tenacity than talent, thinking how Fife reminded him of former Boilermakers star Brian Cardinal.

 

The planning was more of a surprise. Pope received all sorts of applications -- e-mails, faxes, phone calls -- but nothing like Fife's. It was broken down into sections: Fife's plan for hiring a staff, for recruiting, for fund-raising. It even had a PowerPoint presentation.

 

Pope remembers calling Purdue athletics director Morgan Burke, telling him he planned to hire Fife, and asking Burke, "Am I crazy?"

 

Burke told him, "Yeah, you're crazy -- but not because you're hiring Fife."

 

Pope figures Fife had been preparing for this job since he was a kid. Fife's father, Dan, is a coaching legend in Clarkston, Mich., where he has won nearly 90 percent of his games. Dane was a Clarkston ball boy, then a McDonald's All-American, then narrowed his college choice to Indiana, North Carolina, Duke and Michigan State because he wanted to continue his coach-in-training under Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski or Tom Izzo.

 

As a sophomore, Fife went through Bob Knight's ouster at Indiana, and though they haven't spoken since, Fife still considers him a pivotal figure in his life. In 2002, Fife was part of an Indiana team he hopes will be the IPFW blueprint.

 

"I long for this program to have what I had," Fife says. "Winning with guys you love to be around and love to play with. I haven't been married yet and I haven't had kids yet, but right now that's the greatest memory of my life, and that's what I want for our guys here."

 

The Mastodons would do well to win 10 games this season, which would set a school record for Division I, but in 2006-07 they should be more competitive. Fife will transform his backcourt with transfers Kevin Nelson (17 ppg at Central Michigan) and Demetrius Johnson (Kent State), a schoolboy scoring machine from Cleveland.

 

By 2007-08, Fife wants to have the Mastodons on a roll. With just one scholarship left for 2006, he's focusing on the state's deep recruiting class of '07. By then, the IPFW athletic department will be close to leaving the Gates Center, where Fife has a windowless, cinder-block cubicle, for a new $40 million facility.

 

Also by then, Fort Wayne could be in love with Fife's Mastodons. This is a community that supports its own and loves college basketball -- the hockey Komets average nearly 7,000 fans, and a 2004 Notre Dame NIT game at the Coliseum sold out in two hours -- but four years ago, a typical IPFW game drew 125 people. Last season, IPFW averaged 2,378 fans.

 

Fife knows what he has at IPFW. He has a program with nowhere to go but up, and he has the energy and enthusiasm of youth. Fife concludes his tour of the 11,500-capacity War Memorial Coliseum by going to its upper level and staring through a window. To see what he wants to see, Fife has to hop a bit.

 

"Over there we're going to put in a walking bridge that will connect us to campus," he says between hops. "And over there, they'll be putting in a hotel. A Holiday Inn Select."

 

At the moment Fife is pointing at a lot of trees, but he doesn't see them. He sees the future, and it looks beautiful from here.

[Balta1701]

I love Dane Fife.

 

I bet you in like 10 years he's the replacement for whoever replaces the guy who replaces Mike Davis next summer.

[greasywheels121]

It's cool reading that story. I loved Fife as a Hoosier, and then all the stuff about IPFW is really awesome. He's the youngest D1 coach, and then all this stuff is taking place 5 min away from my house. It's fun to follow.

[He_Gawn]

Dane Fife was probably my favorite Hoosier ever. Good for him.

[ilsox7]

Dane Fife was probably my favorite Hoosier ever. Good for him.

 

My favorite Dane Fife memory was after beating Duke, he commented that he would have been stoned upon returning to campus if they had lost, b/c he committed the foul on the 3 pointer at the end of the game. In the Indiana Daily Student the next day, the quote went something like this:

 

Asked about the foul on the 3 point attempt, Fife replied, "I'm glad we won b/c I would have been stoned (in the medieval way) when I returned to campus."

 

I just always got a kick out of the parenthetical the editors of the IDS added.