The rise of IPFW: Part 2

Say what you will about any coach during IPFW’s 12-plus year tenure as Division I program, but this very season is a testament to them all. The rise of IPFW has been a visionary one. Different visions? Sure. Always correct visions? No way. But they have climbed to get here. Every coach, with the exception of one year…the worst year, has avoided a back slide from their previous year.

There should have been no D1 program in 2001-2002, but yet there was. Doug Noll was not a D1 coach and Mark Pope was not a D1 Athletic Director. But I will be damned if they didn’t strap on their boots and get to work. 7-21 in the program’s first year as a D1 Independent, 9-19 the following season.

Doug Noll was the first, but not last, highly polarizing head coach in the Mastodons’ D1 era. Anyone who watched games or covered games was critical of him at times, myself included. It comes with the territory, something I am sure he was and is aware of. But he was handed a losing desk and made the best out of it those first two seasons. He also signed an Indiana All-Star in Beau Bauer and found a diamond in the rough in Loyola volleyball player David Simon.

Then came 2003-2004. There is no official name, no real long standing nightmare, but it was the start of the ‘dark years’ for the program. They went 3-25, the second worst record in the program’s history while losing leading scorer and team leader Terry Collins along the way. Despite all of that, they had a guy who averaged 18 rebounds per game, and that guy, David Simon, was widely considered the second best center in the country behind eventual top draft pick Emeka Okafor. David went on to declare for the NBA Draft, and while it was an awesome thing for the program, as was the attention he was getting, it hinted at the cracks.

 

David Simon

I interviewed both David and Coach Noll on the day that the IPFW student newspaper, The Communicator, found out about his decision. It was a day before his press conference and the two were far apart on their idea of what the plan was. For David, this was his time and he planned to go all out with it. For Noll, it was just to take a sampling and David was absolutely returning to school. The decision, lost in translation between head coach and star player, showed that there was no foundation to build on anymore.

Sadly, David Simon never went to the NBA. Invited to the prestigious pre-draft camp in his native Chicago, the IPFW center tore his ACL at camp as was never the same in my opinion. He came back the following year and the disconnect was clear.

The next year, they were worse, even with a better record. Noll was out midseason, replaced by Joe Pechota and ultimately replaced in the offseason by Dane Fife. The team showed signs of life early in 2004-2005 and won their, then biggest, game in their short D1 history beating Utah State at home. But after the win, the squad lost eight in a row, finalized by a 100-59 loss at Wyoming.