By Kathy Orton
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; H11

Throughout a career that began at Longmeadow High School in Massachusetts and included such varied stops as Syracuse, Dartmouth, Tulane, Marshall and Navy, Georgetown Coach Kevin Kelly has watched other men turn around programs that were drifting. He has seen firsthand what works and what doesn't.

If there's one thing he has learned along the way, it's that it takes more than a clever offensive and defensive strategy to create a winning team. A coach needs to build his players' mettle. He must have them believing they should win even when the odds are stacked against them.

As he takes over a program that hasn't had a winning season in seven years, Kelly has focused most on effecting that kind of attitude adjustment. His goal is to have the Hoyas brimming with boldness and sureness by the end the season.

"We're going into every game like we're going to win it," Kelly said. "We're trying to establish a swagger here. . . . When you first start a program like this, just like at Navy, you're trying to develop that swagger, that confidence."

Navy was the latest program Kelly helped turn around, and he sees plenty of likeness between his old job and his new one. When Kelly joined Paul Johnson's staff in Annapolis, the Midshipmen were dreadful. They had won only one game in two seasons. Now four years later, Navy is coming off its third consecutive bowl game.

"A lot of what we do is what Paul has done just from running a program to the offense and the defense," Kelly said. "Obviously, he's done a terrific job everywhere he's been. The situations [between Navy and Georgetown] are very similar in a lot of ways."

Entering his first season as a college head coach, Kelly draws heavily on his experience working for Johnson as well as former Syracuse coach Dick McPherson, who gave him his first college coaching job. It's been nearly 20 years since Kelly was a graduate assistant, but he hasn't forgotten the lessons McPherson taught him.

"The first year, the team did poorly, and they had a lot of high expectations," Kelly said. "I liked the way he handled the football team. He kept moving forward. He didn't point fingers. He kept scratching and clawing. Then the next year, the team ended up being undefeated and went to the Sugar Bowl."

No one has had a bigger influence on Kelly than his father, who coached football at Rockport High School in New York. The only two photos adorning the wall behind the desk of his Georgetown office are of his father: one as a player, the other as a coach.

"I was a locker room brat," Kelly said. "Since I was little [coaching football] was what I wanted to do. I don't understand people who aren't sure what they want to do in their life."

Kelly faces a tough task revitalizing a Georgetown program that has fallen on hard times since leaving the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for the Patriot League. The Hoyas, who lost only five conference games in their last five years in the MAAC, have won just five league games in their first five years in the Patriot. This lack of success has left the players hungry for a coach who can reverse their recent misfortunes.

"I think the new coach is awesome," senior linebacker Chris Paulus said. "He's perfect for the program. He's helping us try to take it in the right direction in the Patriot League."

Kelly is well aware of the challenge before him, but he also sees Georgetown's enormous untapped potential. He believes he has the resources available to turn the Hoyas into a power in the Patriot League.

"It's a diamond in the rough, and we just have to polish this thing up," Kelly said. "If we do that, then it should be the elite program in the league."