Fancher is on top of mountain at Appalachian State

	Houston Fancher paid his dues at the Division III and juco ranks before working his way up to become the head coach at Appalachian State. Richard C. Lewis/WireImage
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The dream of almost every young, mid-major coach is to move up the college hoops food chain to a bigger job. Houston Fancher doesn't share that dream.

"Buddy, this is big-time," said Fancher, the 40-year-old head coach at Appalachian State. "You are talking about a guy who worked Division III for four years making about $10,000 a year, eating Taco Bell and Spam."

Indeed, Fancher traveled a difficult road to become a Division I head coach, and now in his seventh year on the job, he has his Mountaineers in excellent position to win the Southern Conference tournament and advance to the NCAAs for the first time since 2000. After a seven-game winning streak, Appalachian State stands at 12-3 and is ranked No. 9 in the RPI as of Wednesday (that is not a misprint).

If that resume sounds like it belongs to a guy who is ready to move up, think again. Fancher says he has an ideal job, and one look into his background shows just how appreciative he is to be running a Division I program.

Fancher says he was "5-foot-3, 93 pounds" when he graduated high school in Newport, Tenn., and knew he wasn't going to play college basketball. So he spent four years as a manager at Middle Tennessee State under coach Bruce Stewart. After that, Fancher spent four years as an assistant at Division III Maryville College, then took a head job at North Greenville Junior College for three years. Former North Carolina star Buzz Peterson recommended Fancher to Vanderbilt coach Jan van Breda Kolff in 1995, and Fancher spent one year in Nashville before going with Peterson to Appalachian State. When Peterson was hired by Tulsa in 2000, Fancher was elevated from associate head coach to head coach.

"I've done things a lot of people wouldn't be willing to do," Fancher said. "I lived in Vanderbilt's locker room for a month just to get a chance to coach there. I coached junior college ball for three years and drove the van and made sack lunches."

But it was when he became a head coach that the real nightmare began. Rufus Leach, one of Appalachian State's best players, drowned in a boating accident less than a month after Fancher was promoted. Before the start of the fall semester, an incoming freshman quit the team after his girlfriend became pregnant, and another was hospitalized with bipolar disorder. Two games into the season, Fancher kicked two senior starters off the team for a "violation of team rules," and four games later, he lost another player to a torn ACL. At the semester break, a player transferred, leaving him with five scholarship players and three walk-ons for the balance of his first season.

"I was going to write a book entitled, 'So You Want To Be A Coach?'" Fancher says with a laugh. "But I never considered quitting. I wouldn't let myself quit. I've worked so hard to get to this point. There is no way I would quit. But it did sort of set us back to ground zero as a program."

The Mountaineers have been up and down since, but this season they are thriving. Their almost unfathomable top-10 RPI rating will steadily drop as 11 of ASU's remaining opponents are not currently ranked in the RPI's top 200, but the Mounties have earned that ranking by playing 10 of their first 15 games away from home. Appalachian State won the San Juan Shootout beating Virginia, Central Florida and Vanderbilt on consecutive days and also has road wins at College of Charleston and Virginia Commonwealth.

This year's success was not completely unexpected. The Mountaineers were 14-16 last season but returned 100 percent of their points and  -- though Fancher is quick to point out they also returned 100 percent of their missed shots and turnovers. Added to the mix is Virginia transfer Donte Minter, who is averaging 12.4 points off the bench since becoming eligible seven games ago.