ith stringent academic standards and an annual enrollment of about 1,900, Colorado College doesn't demand winning from is hockey team.

Rather, it demands integrity, honesty and complete effort ( none of which were visible three years ago amid the worst period in the program's 58-year history.

But it's funny what can happen when you inject those qualities into a program whose very future is at stake. At Colorado College, integrity, honesty and complete effort have resulted in unprecedented winning, and the No. 1 ranking in the country.

That's what Don Lucia is responsible for.

"When we hired coach Lucia, I would describe the program at that point at a bit of a crisis," Colorado College athletic director Dr. Max Taylor said.

Starting with an NCAA investigation that led to coach Brad Buetow's resignation in 1992, the community and the school's administration had a litany of reasons the program should cease to exist.

Coupled with Buetow's recruiting violations and ensuing resignation, the Tigers also were about to go homeless because of the planned destruction of the Broadmoor World Arena. And there was no commitment from the administration or community to build a new facility. In addition, athletic funds to support the school's only Division I program were in question ( particularly because the program's integrity was in question.

Ultimately, albeit hesitantly, the school decided to go ahead and hire a new coach and hope those situations resolved themselves.

Enter Lucia, whom one player calls a miracle worker. Lucia walked away from a secure post as head coach at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, uprooted his pregnant wife and three children, and came to Colorado College to try to salvage a program that some wanted to kill.

At the time, Lucia was aware that no coach since 1958 had had an overall winning record at Colorado College, and the Tigers hadn't turned in a winning season since 1980.

"When I came here, the program was in peril," he admitted. However, the Notre Dame alumnus saw something in Colorado College nobody else, not even his wife Joyce, could.

"She started asking me,'Why do you want to take it?'" Lucia said. "Why would I be interested in this job? No one has been able to win here. There was talk they might want to drop the program. There was talk the Broadmoor was going to be torn down. To be honest, a lot of people looked at it as a dead-end job."

"But I rolled the dice because of the strong commitment academically and the environment as a whole. I took the chance, and I was fortunate to walk into a lot better situation that I anticipated."

Now, the situation is this: Lucia, 37, has put the pessimistic rumors about the program's death to their respective graves.

In just two years, Lucia took the remains of Buetow's final 8-28 team and immediately turned the Tigers into back-to back Western Collegiate Hockey Association champions with a 53-23-6 record. He was named 1993-94 WCHA coach of the year in the process. Last year's record of 30-12-1 was the school's best all-time mark ( including Tom Bedecki's 1957 national-championship team.

Currently, Colorado College (9-0-3) is the only unbeaten Division I hockey team in the country and has an opportunity to win three straight WCHA championships ( a feat no team has accomplished since the league was formed in 1937.

All this, yet Colorado College remains the smallest school in the nation with a Division I hockey team.

As a result, the administrators and community alike are now sky-high on the program. Final blueprints for the Tigers' new home ( the 6,500-seat Colorado Springs World Arena ( have been approved. The multiuse facility is scheduled for groundbreaking in July with a completion date of November 1997.

"Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think we would get to this point this quickly," said Taylor.

"I saw in Don Lucia the kind of person that we needed for a program like this. He's a man of integrity, a man who has his priorities straight. He is first and foremost committed to his family. And then he's committed to the education of our athletes.We needed that combination, and we found it in this very special coach."

Winning and losing, Taylor added, had very little to do with his offer to Lucia.

In fact, "They told me I'd never lose my job based on my record," Lucia said. "Winning and losing has never been mandated here. The most important thing here is the kids graduate, they have a positive image on campus and not get in problems with the NCAA. I remember when I applied for the job, they wanted a statement of coaching philosophy. I wrote down I couldn't guarantee how many wins we were going to have, but I could guarantee we would have a clean program and one the community and the college could be proud of."

Considerable credit for the Tigers' phenomenal success also must be given to senior forwards Peter Geronazzo, Jay McNeill, Chad Remackel and Colin Schmidt, all of whom were leftovers from Buetow's regime.

All four currently are feared throughout the WCHA, but none was highly recruited. Geronazzo, for example, couldn't make Buetow's team as a freshman, but now leads the WCHA in scoring. "He's a miracle worker," Geronazzo said of Lucia. "When you look at the record, it looks like a miracle."

"The biggest change was our attitude at the rink. He makes it fun to come to the rink every day. The other thing is we've got great offensive talent on this team. He came in and installed a defense, and gave us the leeway with our creativity. He lets us exploit our talents."

As for recruiting, Colorado College is welcoming some of the best young hockey players in the U.S. and western Canada. This past year, many hockey publications felt Colorado College brought in the No. 1 freshman class in all of college hockey.

Quite a turnaround, wouldn't you say?

Mike Chambers is a sports writer at The Denver Post, where this article was originally published on Dec. 1, 1995.