AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Air Force hired former Denver Broncos assistant Troy Calhoun to replace Fisher DeBerry as football coach Friday.
Calhoun, who left the Broncos to join Gary Kubiak as offensive coordinator of the Houston Texans this season, is a 1989 Air Force graduate — the first former Air Force player to coach the Falcons.
The 38-year-old Calhoun played quarterback for Air Force in 1986. His coaching career began with Air Force and continued at Ohio University and Wake Forest.
He caught on with the Broncos in 2003 as a defensive assistant and became an offense-special teams assistant in 2004. Last season, his title was "assistant to the head coach" for Mike Shanahan.
Calhoun replaces DeBerry, who retired Dec. 15 after 23 years. Calhoun is only the sixth head coach for Air Force, joining a list that includes Bill Parcells and Ken Hatfield.
The 68-year-old DeBerry finished with three straight losing seasons and two big controversies in this final years.
DeBerry spent 27 years at the school, including four as an assistant coach. His 169-109-1 record made him the winningest coach in Air Force history and he had the third-longest tenure at one school of any active college coach, after Joe Paterno (41 years at Penn State) and Bobby Bowden (31 years at Florida State).
DeBerry was 35-11 against Army and Navy and led Air Force to 14 Commander-in-Chief trophies, though he lost his grip on award as Navy won it the last four years.
But DeBerry also had problems off the field in recent years.
In 2005, he was criticized after a 48-10 loss to TCU when he said Air Force didn't have enough "Afro-American" players, singling them out for being able to run well. DeBerry was reprimanded by top brass at the academy and offered a public apology.
In 2004, academy officials asked him to remove a banner from the locker room that included the lines "I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."
During his farewell news conference, DeBerry mentioned his faith, thanking "my Master Coach for leading us to Colorado 26 years ago."