There was a time Tony Ingle wondered if he'd ever coach basketball again.
He'd walked the plank for BYU in that infamous 1996-97 season, absorbing a 1-25 record. He took care of the players, watched over the program, took bullets, had that losing record tacked on to his resume forever and at the end was told: "Thanks, Tony, now we're going to move on and give the job to Steve Cleveland. As we said, it was never promised you'd be the guy."
Tony left BYU at the end of that season. But the bullets he took hurt, even for a stand-up comic like Ingle.
He ended up taking on as many as seven jobs to take care for his family and pay his mortgage on his North Orem home. He sold carpet, went on the Toast Master's speaking circuit, did commercials for a debt consolidation loan company, worked as a part-time scout for the Utah Jazz, did color commentary for the Mountain West Conference and sold insurance.
Today, Ingle is the toast of an Atlanta suburb. His Kennesaw State team sits atop the Atlantic Sun Conference after sweeping a road trip at Stetson and Mercer. He's already won a Division II national championship (in 2004), been national coach of the year, and his Tony Ingle TV coaches show is currently seen in parts of 11 states.
He's known for his one-liners, his jokes and self-effacing outlook on life.
Another snapshot: When Roger Reid was in the epitome of pain with his hip, Ingle would humbly go to Reid's hotel room and put Reid's shoes on and tie them for his boss.
This year Ingle's Owls returned just one starter from a year ago and is patched together with diminutive-sized players and recruits he had to pick up late in the recruiting process last spring and summer. Kennesaw State is 9-1 in league play, 11-7 overall, and on an eight-game win streak. ESPN.com just ran a long feature on Ingle last week, prompting more national recognition and smiles from those who know him.
"We've had a great stretch the last few weeks, now we've got four of our next six on the road. Our bubble is about to burst," Ingle said Saturday from his hotel room.
"We're just trying to keep the helium in the balloon."
What's kept afloat is this remarkable personality, an attitude out of a Victor Hugo novel.
Tony Ingle should have quit a long time ago but he loves people too much. And basketball?
The game was his first love, a sport he learned to play as a kid with a pair of mismatched tennis shoes fished out of a dumpster.
From dumpster diving, to getting dumped at BYU, Ingle has proven a magnanimous survivor, the stuff they make movies out of. "Glory Road" and UTEP's Don Haskins? Script writers ought to take a shot at the Ingle saga.
Call it "Just Tony."
Ingle's story remains one of intrigue.
Ingle's starting point guard is his son Golden, a former 3-point bomber at Timpanogos High. Golden still isn't taller than 5-foot-9 after serving an LDS mission but he's the team's leading scorer, averaging more than 18 points a game. His lone starter from last year's co-champion Peach Belt Conference team is Ronnell Wooten, who was on a partial scholarship last year, something like a Hope of America grant-in-aid. Now that Kennesaw State is Division I, Ingle's had to come up with the rest of the scholarship money for Wooten and others.
Ingle hired new assistants over the summer and the rest of his lineup is under 6-foot-4 behind a 6-7, 175-pound center. Ingle's men, as expected, play larger than they appear.
Folks at KSU get a thrill seeing the school's name crawl across the screen on ESPN now that they've got Division I status. It's a daunting task, making that step, said Ingle of a process Utah Valley State College is also going through.
"Last March 22 we went to bed a Division II program. On the 23rd we were Division I. We got started late recruiting and didn't finish until August. By then recruits had been pretty well picked over."
Today, Ingle's team is mentioned in one mid-major poll. "Somebody needs to be given a saliva test for that vote," Ingle said.
The ESPN.com writer Kyle Welliston underscored the Ingle magic in his piece. After Ingle's Owls dropped behind a much bigger and deeper East Tennessee State squad more than a week ago, trailing 20-11 before cutting the lead to two at halftime, the Owls came out the second half an won 78-71 in overtime.
Welliston asked Ingle what he told them at halftime and he replied he only told them he loved them. He said: "I know we're getting beat bad right now, but I just want to tell you I love you guys, and I want to thank you for letting me be your coach."
OK, sounds cheesy. But not any more so than "Hoosiers." Gene Hackman could never play Tony Ingle. You'd have to find somebody a blend between Chris Rock and Charleton Heston.
Ingle took KSU from 11 wins to 20 his first two seasons as head coach. After his third season, KSU won 25 games and made the NCAA Division II tournament for the first time in school history. In his fourth season, 2004, the Owls won it all.
"It's been fun, it really has," Ingle said of the attention KSU received this past week after ESPN threw his squad a bone.
Tony Ingle.
He's a guy that didn't fit BYU's profile at the time — the corporate CEO or mission president look. He joked too much. He was too country bumpkinesque. He had that scar on his face from that childhood growth. He wasn't junior college coach Steve Cleveland.
"Somebody asked me the other day if I had an iPod," Iingle told ESPN.com. "I thought they were making fun of my face. I said I've got a lot of diseases, but that ain't one of 'em."
Where's Hollywood with this one?
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com