Remember '99: Warriors Relive Their Historic Season

As part of Homecoming Week, we'll be looking back at the magical run of the 1999 Warrior Football Team in recognition of the 25th anniversary of their incredible turnaround from 0-12 a year before, to 9-4 WAC Champions. Each of this week's stories ran following the season as part of a special edition 1999 season in review program. Members of the 1999 team will be honored during Saturday's game vs. Nevada.

That evening, the Aloha Stadium stands reverberated with an intensity which perhaps few had ever experienced in Hawai‘i. Fresno State quarterback Billy Volek's fourth down pass towards the end zone sailed out of bounds, preserving the University of Hawai‘i's 31-24 double-overtime victory. The win sealed the Warriors' first Western Athletic Conference championship in seven years.

The story is well documented: an 0-12 record in 1998; an 18-game losing streak, which stretched to 19 after a season-opening defeat to USC; a string of 23 consecutive WAC road losses.

Then it appeared new head coach June Jones and his staff pulled out a wand from their hats and the magic began.

Three months after the USC game, the Warriors were not only the headline around town, they became college football's darlings of America.

Hawai‘i finished the regular season at 8-4, then closed the books on a dream season with a win over Oregon State in the Jeep O‘ahu Bowl. The victory notched the Warriors' ninth win, breaking the NCAA mark for best turnaround season.

"We all came down with this motto: One team, one dream," junior wide receiver Channon Harris said. "Our goal was to get to the bowl game. Coach Jones said how it could happen that way. We lost our first game, but won the next two and won our road games to keep the home field advantage."

Much of the credit is attributed to Jones, the CNN/SI and Sporting News National Coach of the Year, who helped to make the team believe in itself.

"To me, he was the team," Harris said. "Without him, there would be no success. First he made us believe. He knew what the offense could do. If we ran the offense right, then it couldn’t be stopped. Any team we lined up against, we could beat."

Junior slotback Craig Stutzmann agreed.

"With coach Jones and his staff, we knew we had coaching," he said. "They revived our spirits and put together a good game plan. Everyone was tired of losing. For the past three years guys on the team only won five games and everyone was sick of it." Just ask anyone on the team about the turnaround and the reason is the same — the coaching staff.

"Yep, it was the coaches," junior safety Nate Jackson said. "They came in and put the systems in, offensively and defensively. In the spring, everyone on defense was kind of iffy about the new system. But as the days went on we started to understand what the defense was based on. We really trusted the coaches who really set the standard to play. When the players saw the coaches were here to help, we began to believe in ourselves."

Very few people, however, thought that Jones' influence would produce immediate dividends. The only people who believed were the ones who suited up every Saturday. In fact, senior offensive lineman Adrian Klemm made a bold prediction prior to the start of the season, saying the Warriors had what it took to win the conference.

"At first, we thought he was off his rocker," Stutzmann said. "But we looked at the game plan and then looked at the rest of the WAC. We figured it wasn't as tough as some people said. We knew we had the talent to compete with everyone."

And it was Warrior special teams coach Dennis McKnight who gave his players some added incentive to make it to the postseason.

"Coach McKnight said our goal is to be in some fancy hotel in Waikiki and getting ready for the bowl game on Christmas," Harris said.

But the golden beaches of Waikiki were not the only things that helped to inspire the Warriors.

"What fired us up was that the Fresno State players were laughing at Adrian and at coach (during the WAC media day)," Stutzmann said. That really served as an incentive, especially when Fresno came to town with the WAC championship on the line."

And despite silencing some critics by reaching the Jeep O‘ahu Bowl, Harris said they still felt disrespect from the opposition, after two unsuccessful regular season games against Pac-10 Conference opponents.

"We wanted to show them what we could do," Harris said. "We were thinking about how they weren't respecting us."

But those thoughts eventually went away and the focus finally rested on stepping into Aloha Stadium on Christmas afternoon.

"The game itself was just unbelievable," Harris said. "I couldn't believe that we were actually playing in a bowl game."

Being in a bowl game perhaps wasn't the only thing that was unbelievable for Harris.

The former defensive back who had never played receiver prior to the 1999 season was one of the Jeep O‘ahu Bowl heroes, catching two touchdown passes from all-WAC second team quarterback Dan Robinson.

"For myself, I couldn't believe it happened like that (in front of a live national television audience)," he said. "I couldn't let my family and the boys back home (in Culver City, Calif.) down. I just had to do whatever it took to get the win."

While the Warriors turned it around on the field, there is overwhelming agreement by team members that the fans who flocked to Aloha Stadium each week were a major ingredient in their success.

"The fans were big," linebacker Anthony Smith said. "We had really good fans this season. When the fans came out they gave us a big boost."

Smith pointed out two games in which he remembered the crowd gave the Warriors inspiration.

"The games against Fresno State and Navy, the fans were loud," he recalled. "It was great. I've never experienced something like that while I've been here in Hawai‘i."

With the team's remarkable turnaround, the focus was on the run-and-shoot offense that Jones brought from the NFL. Each week, it seemed school records fell by the waysides. While the attention was focused on the offense, the defense quietly became a force to be reckoned with.

And while several national media members called the defensive unit average in the days prior to the Jeep O‘ahu Bowl, the players who comprised the Warrior defense never felt slighted.

"No one really worried about it," Smith said. "Of course, the offense will get the attention. But if you look at what we did, we had more sacks, had more interceptions and got better each week and looked forward to getting better."

The lack of respect towards the defense never bothered Jackson either.

"We knew what we had to do," he said. "It didn't matter what everyone perceived of us. We just had the will to go out, had trust in our coaches and played football." Playing football is exactly what the Warriors did. Whether it was at home or on the road - where they not only snapped, but destroyed, the seven-year losing streak by winning all three road games.

"The way the coaches looked at it, winning one road game is like winning two home games," Jackson said. "It also helped to leave early so we could get adjusted to the weather and the time difference."

No one will ever forget what happened in 1999, when a school, which was made a mockery of around the country in 1998, defied the odds and went on to become one of the feel-good sports stories of the year.