Calhoun grew up in Oregon and graduated from Roseburg High, and has family and friends with plenty of affection for the Beavers.
Terry Calhoun was an Oregon State football season-ticket holder for nearly 40 years. The 83-year-old Damascus resident is a huge Beavers basketball fan.
This Saturday from his living room, Calhoun will watch Air Force play Oregon State in football. There isn’t any question about the team he’ll be rooting for.
“Air Force. 100%,” Calhoun said.
His son is Troy Calhoun, Air Force coach since 2007. Troy, born in McMinnville and a Roseburg High graduate, has Beavers roots that run deep. Even if he grew up preferring the rival school.
Calhoun’s mother, Joan, lives five blocks from Reser Stadium. Calhoun said whenever he visits his mother, he goes for a run around Oregon State’s campus. His grandmother once worked for 38 years at Oregon State in food services. His best friend is Clackamas County assistant district attorney Scott Healy, whose wife is an OSU graduate.
Healy is attending Saturday’s game at Falcon Stadium.
“I told him he better not wear any of that orange and black while you’re here,” Calhoun said.
Oregon State (4-5) at Air Force (2-7)
- When: Saturday, Nov. 16
- Time: 12:30 p.m. PT
- Where: Falcon Stadium, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado
- TV channel: CBS Sports Network
- Stream: You can watch this game live for FREE with Fubo (free trial) or with DirecTV Stream (free trial). If you already have a cable provider, use your login information to watch this game on cbssports.com.
- Oregon State football 2024 season schedule, scores
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Terry Calhoun, who grew up in Corvallis and Philomath, said he desperately wanted his children to share his love for Oregon State. He put Beavers posters in Troy’s bedroom as a child. Troy remembers often listening to Darrell Aune call OSU basketball games during the Beavers’ “Orange Express” run.
“I was always a Beaver fan. Didn’t do me much good when it came to Troy,” Terry Calhoun said.
No, it didn’t. Troy Calhoun laughs at how he sheepishly gravitated toward being a Ducks fan. Eugene was closer to Roseburg than Corvallis. His high school football coach, Roseburg’s Thurman Bell, often took Troy and other boys to Ducks games on Saturdays, even though Bell was a diehard Beaver.
Eugene station KEZI used to televise Ducks basketball replays from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Thursday and Saturday nights. While in grade school, Troy would wait for his parents to go to bed, then he’d sneak into the TV room and watch the game.
The next day, Troy said he’d “doze off in class,” but it was worth it.
Calhoun was a two-sport star at Roseburg, an all-conference quarterback, and a member of Doc Stewart’s 1984 American League World Series baseball team. Calhoun had a few college offers, among them Idaho. He said Oregon State and Oregon didn’t show interest.
Joan Calhoun had other ideas. Air Force called Troy one evening and expressed some interest. Troy knew next to nothing about Air Force. Joyce, an emergency room nurse, mentioned it to a doctor at her hospital.
“The doc told her, literally, Joan, if he has a chance to go there, you have to make him go there,” he said.
Reluctantly, Calhoun enrolled at Air Force in 1985. As Calhoun was busy year-round with sports, he never made a campus visit. His first day at the academy was basic training.
“I was thinking, I am a major fish out of water,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun grew to appreciate what Air Force offered. Some 40 years later, he hasn’t left. Air Force became part of the family; his younger sister, Callie, won six NCAA titles in cross country and track and field while at the academy. Callie Molloy now lives in Sherwood.
“This place, in so many good ways, it does change you from the time you’re 19 years old to when you’re 22,” Calhoun said. “All of a sudden, the responsibility that you have as an officer and the willingness to serve is, I don’t want to say overwhelming, but boy, it humbles you.”
Calhoun may have grown up a Ducks fan, but he has serious appreciation for what Oregon State has accomplished. Calhoun ticks off a list of things he’s noticed: the Reser Stadium upgrade, the Valley Football Center, women’s basketball success, the men’s basketball 2021 Elite Eight run, the 20-year baseball run.
“And frankly, how darn good they’ve been in football,” he said. “It’s so unfortunate with what happened with conference realignment. They literally, on the fields, on the courts, have earned the chance to be a part of a major conference.”
Though Air Force is struggling this season at 2-7, the Falcons have been a hit under Calhoun. He’s 131-89 over 18 seasons, with two Mountain West titles and 13 bowl appearances. Air Force has won 10 or more games five times during Calhoun’s tenure.
Calhoun counts Bell, who retired in 2015 after coaching Roseburg football for 45 years, as one of his coaching influences.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody, anywhere, that’s more of a talented football coach,” Calhoun said of Bell, now 81.
Terry Calhoun is an influence as well, of course. A former teacher, he is beginning his 61st season as a high school basketball coach. He is a boys assistant at Nelson High.
Now 83, Terry lives in a three-bedroom house in Damascus. His neighbors know in the fall to look for three flags on his garage: the American flag, and one for both Air Force and Oregon State.
Saturday is the first time Air Force has played the Beavers or Ducks during Calhoun’s Air Force tenure. While an assistant at Wake Forest, Calhoun faced Oregon in the 2002 Seattle Bowl, a game the Demon Deacons won 38-17.
Calhoun’s name has come up more than once when Oregon State and Oregon had openings. It surfaced during the Beavers’ most recent coaching search when Jonathan Smith left following the 2023 season.
Calhoun said he has respect for both schools, and “if my own son or daughter went to either one of those schools, you’d be proud as a parent.”
But he hasn’t felt a pull to return home and coach college football. Calhoun said “it stirs you on the inside,” what Air Force men and women do for the country.
Said Calhoun: “I’m lucky to wear blue and silver.”
— Nick Daschel can be reached at 360-607-4824, [email protected] or @nickdaschel.
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